LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — If you thought you had a good grip on what our new normal might look like, we should all probably let go of that thought. Kentucky's COVID-19 positivity rate is going up, and there's also an increase in testing.
"We're doing about 500 a day now," said Emily Spivey, who works for Wild Health, which has been conducting testing outside Kroger Field since the beginning.
Emily said, before this recent spike, they had been seeing about 100 people per day as recently as thirty days ago, but circumstances have changed a lot since then.
"Most of those (100 per day) were for travel, getting a PCR test for travel. But over the last few weeks, we have seen an increase, and most people are concerned about the Delta variant.
Sydney Rhodus is among those who haven't been vaccinated but said she's now considering it while waiting in line to get tested.
"I was kind of skeptical at first, not going to lie, but with the different strains coming, I figure it's better to be safe than sorry," she said.
We've seen and heard of so many examples of remorse from people who had a chance to get vaccinated and instead came down with a debilitating case of COVID-19. But as long as Kentucky's vaccine rate remains around 50%, experts feel we're going to be living with some form of the virus for a while, and that these testing sites will subsequently remain a necessary part of our lives.
"I think it's great that people want to come to get tested to keep the community safe," Spivey said. "I hate that it's coming back up again," she added.
Testing has gone up. It's up roughly five times what it was just one month ago.
"We used to have those big tents covering all of these lanes. We took those down because it was slowing down, and football season is about to start, but we might have to open a couple of more lanes," Spivey said.
That's disappointing for some to read because, for a little while, it felt as if we were so close to the end.
