State, local data conflicting from differences in address, residence

On Saturday, the office of Fulton County Emergency Management published a post on social media, stating “Fulton County has been notified that a person from Fulton County has tested positive for Coronavirus. While Governor Beshear announced the Fulton County case in his daily briefing, you need to know that the individual is NOT a resident of Fulton County. the individual lives in Graves County, but has a Fulton, Kentucky address. The 42041 zip code covers parts of 3 counties in western Kentucky and the mailing address is what is used to track cases. As of now, no resident of Fulton County has tested positive for the Covid-19 virus.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, according to the data posted on the state website regarding numbers of positive tests per county, Fulton County was still designated as having “1-10” positive tests.

While Fulton County Health Department Registered Nurse Debbie Barnes said her office has not been notified of a case in Fulton County, as in an individual who resides in Fulton County has tested positive for the virus, if she did receive such notification, she would be required to make contact with that individual every day, to make sure stay at home measures are followed, as well as make contact with any individuals who had contact with the person who tested positive. Barnes said those who had some contact with the positively-tested individual would not necessarily be provided with the individual’s name, only that they were being notified they had made some sort of contact with someone who had tested positive.

At that point, those who had contact would also be required to maintain stay at home measures, or quarantine.

The Fulton County Health Department, at this point, does not have testing procedures in place, and likewise, Barnes said, the facility does not have provisions of PPE to conduct the testing. She suggested individuals interested in possible testing could contact their primary care physician or medical facility.

A call was made at approximately 11:30 a.m. Tuesday by The Current to the Kentucky Department of Public Health, with a recommendation to then place a call to Anya Weber, Executive Staff Advisor, Department for Community Based Services, Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services in Frankfort, explaining the discrepancy in data, between the state and local level of reporting positive tests for Covid-19.

In an email correspondence, Weber said she would check with program experts in the Department for Public Health to see if they have any clarification, and she had copied the agency’s Executive Director of the Office of Public Affairs, Susan Dunlap in the message and inquiry. She also stated she was trying to get an answer and had passed “this” along to the Governor’s Office for consideration in the daily briefing.

The last correspondence, via email from Weber, at just after 4 p.m., stated she had spoken to experts in the Department for Public Health and they are following up on what was mentioned in my inquiry, by looking into it with the Regional Health Department.