Ninety-four of Kentucky’s 120 counties are now considered to be in the ‘red zone’.
The state calculates the COVID-19 incidence rate of every county by calculating the total number of new cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day period.
In smaller communities, COVID-19 can change day-to-day operations in the blink of an eye.
On Thursday, Menifee County was declared an ‘orange zone’ within a day becoming a ‘yellow zone’.
Menifee County Judge-Executive Rick Stiltner said a single day can determine whether a rural county will be in a red or green zone.
“It takes 12 active cases in 7 days for us to be in the red,” he explained. “If a family of six all tests positive for the virus, that’s already half of what it takes.”
The counties surrounding Menifee are all currently ‘red zones’.
“54 or 56 percent of the people who live in Menifee County work in those other communities. They’re leaving Menifee County to go to work. Every day they are going into those red counties,” Stiltner said. “What we do in those other counties affects what happens here. It affects not just this pandemic, it’s economic, it’s the whole gamut of things.”
With this in mind, Stiltner is asking everyone to be extra careful when they go beyond the county’s borders.
“What I hope happens is our folks when they go outside our community to those workplaces or to those grocery stores to shop or to Lowe’s to buy lumber or whatever it is they do, that they follow the recommendations that are put in place to help keep us as safe as we possibly can be,” he said.
