Nov. 24: To allow our employees to enjoy the holiday (and their first break since the pandemic began!), we will be closed Thursday, Nov. 26, for Thanksgiving. This includes our COVID-19 response team, meaning new positive cases will not be contacted until Friday. Cases will also not be released from isolation orders on Thursday. The COVID-19 response team returns to work Friday, Nov. 27. Our website will not have numbers updated on Thursday but will return to updates Friday. All other public health services will be closed Friday and will return to regular hours Monday, Nov. 30.

Part of the transition includes loading data from all previous cases into the new system. We do not anticipate the transition will cause any delays in case investigations or in updating our daily COVID-19 case counts on our website. However, specific demographic information might not be available for our daily charts/graphs in the interim. The charts/graphs will return as soon as the information is available to be pulled from the new system.

Nov. 17: Because of the large spike in the number of new COVID-19 cases reported daily, we are streamlining our contact tracing process to focus on contacting the positive cases to get them into isolation as quickly as possible.
If you live in Lexington and test positive for COVID-19, please begin your isolation period immediately, and you will be contacted by the health department as soon as possible. We are also asking you to start contacting anyone who you have been in close contact with to help slow the spread. We will only be able to follow up on contacts in certain higher-risk situations so that our team can focus on identifying and contacting the increasing number of new cases and isolating them.
We have developed these guides (COVID-19 Patient Guide/en Español and Close Contact Quarantine Information/en Español) to help you understand what steps to take once testing positive.

Nov. 9: Starting Nov. 9, we are transitioning to the state’s contact tracing system. Over the next few weeks, our staff will be entering cases into the state’s tracking system while also continuing to use our existing system. We are working with the Kentucky Department for Public Health to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Part of the transition includes loading data from all previous cases into the new system. We do not anticipate the transition will cause any delays in case investigations or in updating our daily COVID-19 case counts on our website. However, specific demographic information might not be available for our daily charts/graphs in the interim. The charts/graphs will return as soon as the information is available to be pulled from the new system.

Oct. 7: The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, with assistance from the Kentucky Department for Public Health, has developed a way to enter more than 1,900 of Lexington’s COVID-19 cases into a state system. This will allow the state’s reported COVID-19 case numbers for Lexington to more closely align with Lexington’s cumulative case count. We are appreciative of the community’s understanding as we moved through this delay. As previously stated, the delay only existed with data entry; there were no delays in contacting positive cases and close contacts in Lexington.

 

Oct. 5: As of today, Lexington university and college students who test positive for COVID-19 on Oct. 1, 2020, or later and who were living in Lexington during their exposure to COVID-19 will be counted as a case recorded in Fayette County. In other words, most students who choose to isolate outside the county will now be considered Fayette County cases and will be included in our daily reporting; this includes in-state and out-of-state students. For those students who isolate elsewhere, the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department or the Kentucky Department for Public Health will be in contact with the appropriate local health departments where the student is isolating. The outside jurisdiction will still be responsible for isolating and monitoring the new cases. Following the request of the Kentucky Department for Public Health, the change was made to more accurately reflect the spread of disease locally and to be more consistent with other jurisdictions’ case-counting methodology.