744 new KY coronavirus cases and 9 deaths

Gov. Andy Beshear announced 744 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Friday, as well as nine more virus-related deaths.

Five of Friday’s deaths are from the state’s coronavirus death audit, which continues to yield previously uncounted deaths from last year attributable to the virus. At least 6,223 people have died in Kentucky from COVID-19, and 432,220 cases of the virus have been confirmed.

At least 1,533,620 Kentuckians have received a dose of the coronavirus vaccine — more than 23,620 of whom got their shot in the last day. As Beshear said on Thursday, there are tens of thousands of openings at vaccination sites across the commonwealth, including at the University of Kentucky’s site inside Kroger Field and the Kentucky Horse Park. For a full list of more than 500 locations, visit vaccine.ky.gov.

The positivity rate dropped slightly to 2.79 percent. There are 382 hospitalized with coronavirus (five more than Thursday), and of those patients, 106 are in intensive care (four more), and 60 are on a ventilator (seven more).

Alex Acquisto covers health and social services for the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com. She joined the newspaper in June 2019 as a corps member with Report for America, a national service program made possible in Kentucky with support from the Blue Grass Community Foundation. She’s from Owensboro, Ky., and previously worked at the Bangor Daily News and other newspapers in Maine.
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