Category: Coronavirus

The coming week’s Covid-19 counts in Kentucky will be of critical importance.

Since the last update in this series on July 26, the number of new weekly Covid-19 cases continued its rise into new territory with almost 4000 new cases. On none of the most recent 7 days was the daily increment fewer than 500, with a maximum of 765 last Saturday July 31. The weekly total was however less than that of the preceding week when the total exceeded 4500 new cases. I do not know if the peak days with 977 and 833 cases on July 19 and 24 included targeted testing initiatives at prisons or long-term residential facilities that would artifactually drive the case count up as it did on May 5th. While there is some hope that the interruption in the current upward climb in the 7-Day average of new cases represents a pause to a new and higher “plateau,” I believe it is too soon to tell. Governor Beshear issued an executive order to require face coverings on July 9. This met with legal and community pushback from some quarters. More recently on July 27, bars were ordered closed for two weeks and restaurant service was dialed back to 25% capacity indoors. It is too soon to determine the effectiveness of these measures as currently complied with.

While a partial report yesterday (Sunday) was lower with 463 announced new cases, this is high for a Sunday. Today (Monday) is also historically a low-count day so It is likely that we will need to see what happens during the catch-up reporting from the public health districts later this week. National reports note that the explosion of new cases in the South and West is now spreading to the Midwest– and that includes us and our neighboring states. I would like to think we will be largely spared, but not if we hide our heads in the sand or pretend it is safe to open stadiums, tracks, schools, or festivals without a demonstrable way to prove that it is safe to do so, or a social apparatus to deal with the inevitable outbreaks that will occur.


I have been updating KHPI’s online Covid-19 Tracker daily with Kentucky’s numbers and will do so again with this evening’s announcements. I invite readers to help me analyze the interactive data visualizations. Below are graphics that are current as of Saturday August 1, but will be updated again this evening.

This first is shows the aggregate cases and deaths since the first case was discovered in Kentucky. With the weight of 30,000 cases behind it, any short-term change in the trajectory of the lines will not jump out at us, but the overall rising rate of new cases since early July is well established.

Continue reading “The coming week’s Covid-19 counts in Kentucky will be of critical importance.”

Kentucky Added 4580 New Covid-19 Cases Last Week. New Record.

No change in rate of increase in new cases since July 1st. Simple projections are disturbing.

Yesterday’s (Saturday) release of Covid-19 tracking data by the Governor’s office capped off what is by far the largest addition to total weekly cases of Covid-19 since the first case was documented 141 days ago. The 4580 new cases marked the third week in a row with record numbers of new cases, dwarfing the 1460 new cases for the week beginning June 28. The rate of increase of the 7-Day rolling average of daily cases has been going up at the same rate since July 1st. Graphic projections of daily new cases based either on the absolute numbers of new cases or their 7-Day rolling averages agree. Both predict the same near-future estimates of 1000 new cases per day by August 3; and 2000 new cases by August 18. Based on current data alone, both would have us at 5000 new cases per day by the first week of September. The New York Times this morning rates Kentucky as having one of the most rapidly expanding epidemics in the nation. I would like to wish away such a future, but at this time I am unable to do so.

Below are some of the data visualizations that lead me to these projections and concerns. Updated interactive versions which allow different time-frames to be chosen and which include all my data are available here.

This first graphic shows the 7-Day rolling average of new cases added daily to Kentucky’s announced total. KHPI defines New Cases as the increment in aggregate total cases from the previous day. As described elsewhere, this number is usually a handful of cases fewer than announced from Frankfort or by the national Covid-data aggregators which use Frankfort’s numbers. It is impossible to ignore the abrupt shift towards the vertical beginning around July 4th with 209 cases to yesterday’s 654. With small deviations reflecting weekend delays in reporting, the plot-line is ascending relentlessly.

Continue reading “Kentucky Added 4580 New Covid-19 Cases Last Week. New Record.”

What if Kentucky’s New Covid-19 Cases Increase at the Current Exponential Rate?

Yesterday’s (Wednesday) evening Covid-19 update from Frankfort told of 518 new cases but from which there were an unusually high number of 38 removed as duplicates or perhaps for other reasons. KHPI reports new cases as the day-to-day difference in total cases which yields a smaller number of 480 additional new cases. This number, while higher than any new case number earlier than July 7, is less than the several 500s, 646, or 977 counts of the previous 7 days. The rise in the 7-Day average to a new high of 552 was at least temporarily blunted– but it has not begun to fall either. Time will tell us in which direction our case trend is headed. It has only been since July 9 that mandatory mask use was required in Kentucky, but its implementation was challenged in the courts and compliance has been spotty in any event. I suspect it is too early to expect a major effect on spread at this early time. End-of-week Fridays and Saturdays have historically given us higher counts in the past. The monstrously high count of 977 was reported just last Sunday. Three reporting days of the week remain just ahead of us.

[Addendum 7-24-20: Yesterday evening’s data report confirmed ongoing rapid expansion of the epidemic. KHPI noted 607 additions to total cases and 7 new deaths. With two days to go in this calendar week, the number of new cases is already nearly as many as last week. Based on the current rate of increase of the 7-Day average, new cases are doubling by at least every 12-13 days. Hospital and ICU utilization continue to trend upwards. In all this, Kentucky is mirroring the nation overall. We are all in trouble! The full panel of visualizations on-line have been updated.]

[Addendum 7-24 4:30 pm: todays new case reports adds 744 to the total. This is bad news. Even without Saturday’s report tomorrow, the number of new cases has jumped well ahead of last weeks total. At this rate, unless something changes or happens, we will be at 1000 cases per day by August 3d. Deaths in today’s report added 7 new ones. I will elaborate on the weeks finding s tomorrow evening. I place an updated graphic of 7-Day New Cases at the end of this article.]

7-Day rolling average of new cases as of 7-22-20
Continue reading “What if Kentucky’s New Covid-19 Cases Increase at the Current Exponential Rate?”

Covid-19 in Kentucky. The Bad News Gets Even Worse.

At the time of my last article on July 16, I reported the record-breaking rise in new Coronavirus cases in Kentucky. That was on a Tuesday. I amended the article twice to show that the epidemic surge was no illusion. Indeed, over the weekend the curve of new cases continued to go nearly straight up in a clear exponential manner. Yesterday’s (Monday) new case count leapfrogged over any previous high to 977. Kentucky has the dubious distinction this morning to be listed by the New York Times as among the very top states with the most rapidly increasing number of Covid-19 cases. This is not something for which recognition is desirable!

Technical note:
For these initiatives, I have been calculating daily new cases as the increase in Total New Cases from the Total of the previous day. This number is usually a few below what the Governor’s report terms “New Cases.” I understand that latter group includes duplicates, out of state cases, corrections, or perhaps other exceptions that do not ultimately show up in the Total (aggregate) Cases. This likely source of confusion can be seen in the data of the national data aggregators and probably in the data of the CDC. I did not want to include duplicates and my efforts to obtain better data from Frankfort have not been successful. The differences between KHPI’s counts of new cases and Frankfort’s are small and the shape of the curves remains essentially identical.

I have been updating the on-line interactive versions daily on KHPI’s Public Tableau website. I began this series of articles in part as a self-educational project to explore how emerging epidemiological data could be usefully portrayed and used to monitor how and where our public health efforts were succeeding (or not) in a timely way. The result was a larger number of visualizations than most readers might want to see. beginning today, I trimmed out a number of graphics that seemed less useful at this stage of the epidemic. I place below a few of the graphics that include yesterday’s new, and indeed frightening case numbers. The new link link just above opens the most up-to-date interactive versions of all the data and visualizations.

Here is a traditional Bar Chart of the number of new cases per day current up to yesterday, July 19. Click on it to enlarge in a separate screen.

Continue reading “Covid-19 in Kentucky. The Bad News Gets Even Worse.”