PIKEVILLE, Ky. (WYMT) - Pike County is seeing the aftermath of the holiday surge of COVID-19 cases. As of January 20, the county has 4,173 cases. 881 one of those are active.
“One day, which was our all time daily high, we had 92 cases. That was a very scary time. We were definitely seeing a surge,” said Pike County Public Health Director, Tammy Riley.
Earlier this month, Riley says she was seeing case numbers of 70 or more each day. This past weekend the cases declined to around 30 cases, but this week, cases are back up to 50 to 60 per day.
“Hopefully we won’t see that shoot back up into that 70s, 80s and 90s per day. That’s just an incredible number for this population,” said Riley.
The inevitable aftermath of the surge is hitting the hospitals. According to data from the state, on Monday, hospital ICU capacity hit 100%. Now, it is down to 89%.
“The exponential growth that we’ve seen in cases is incredible. I mean you see it, you hear about it but to actually experience it on a daily basis with your own people you know your own area. It’s just mind boggling. It’s really been crazy,” said Riley.
She says Pikeville Medical Center officials have told her they have the capability to expand the ICU, but it all depends if they have the staff available.
“If staff is also sick they could get to that point where they would be unable to expand. We hope we never see that here in Pike County,” said Riley.
Urging people to take this seriously, as the hospital could not have a spot available if someone has a medical emergency.
“Those emergency unexpected events in their lives there may not be a bed available. There may not be staffing available to assist you,” said Riley.
In January alone, the county has reported 1,079 cases. December had about 1,200 cases.
“When one month starts almost doubling the previous month, you’re in exponential growth and that’s when it’s out of control,” said Riley.
With more than 4,000 cases, and less than 60,000 people in the county, Riley says Pike County is nearing 10% of the population being diagnosed with the virus.
“We can’t continue to maintain the contact tracing and managing the cases at that level,” said Riley.
Vaccine distribution in the county is in Phase 1a and 1b. Riley says most of the teachers were vaccinated last week.
We’re talking about thousands of individuals. There’s well over 1,000 just in school personnel that we’ve had to complete and we’re talking about a good portion. Pike County is actually an older has a high prevalence of 60 and older,” said Riley.
She hopes in the coming weeks, Phase 1c will open up, which includes anyone 60 and older, anyone 16 and older considered high risk by the CDC and all essential workers.
“1c is going to be a wide sweeping category that will take several months to complete,” said Riley.
While the vaccine is becoming available, Riley says it will probably be late summer or early fall by the time a sense of normalcy returns.
“The very, very first phase of the vaccine recipients would only now be seeing the full immunity from it so it’s going to take, we’re really talking about several months,” she said.
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The Link LonkJanuary 21, 2021 at 08:18AM
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Health Officials: Pike County's ICU capacity hits 89% after post holiday COVID-19 surge - WYMT
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