Louisville health officials say community avoided large spike in COVID-19 cases following Thanksgiving

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Health officials in Louisville are waiting to see if the city experiences a surge in COVID-19 cases following Christmas and New Year's after a large spike was avoided around Thanksgiving.

"If you look around there country, there are places that are truly in desperate situations right now, and we have managed to manage the situation somewhat better than others," said Dr. John Klein, with the University of Louisville School of Medicine, during Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer's virtual town hall Saturday.

It wasn't a total victory, but Klein seemed encouraged that Louisville's coronavirus hospitalizations and intensive care unit capacity were not hit as hard as other cities in the region.

"You can't get arrogant about this because the virus is sneaky," He said. "You just have to keep up what we've been doing, and hopefully we did that through Christmas, New Year's and on into the beginning of the year."

Fischer also discussed the opening of a mass vaccination site Monday at Broadbent Arena. The site will initially be available for health care workers and first responders only.

"We'll be building from 100 or low 100s per day up to a thousand-plus per day as we scale the vaccination distribution," Fischer said.

Jefferson County reported 353 new COVID-19 cases Saturday for a total of 52,240 since the pandemic began, according to a report from Kentucky Public Health. Gov. Andy Beshear's office said six women, ages 73, 77, 79, 80, 90 and 96, and three men, ages 70, 72 and 87, from Jefferson County died from COVID-19 between Thursday, Dec. 31, and Saturday.

The governor's office reported 8,739 new COVID-19 cases and 75 deaths in which the virus was a contributing factor between New Year's Eve and Saturday. The state's positivity rate, a measure of the proportion of COVID-19 tests returning positive, rose to 10.79% on Saturday after falling as low as 7.95% on Christmas Day.

Related Stories: