UPDATE: COVID-19 Patient Did Reside In Garrard Since November

(Lancaster, KY - April 4, 2020- 12:30 PM) - Earlier today the Garrard County Health Department released information that last night’s confirmation of a COVID-19 case in Garrard may have been premature and that the patient lived in Lexington, however new information suggests the patient had lived in Garrard since November and is only now self quarantined in Lexington following his diagnosis.

Back in mid-March, the Catholic Action Center began moving a vulnerable population of seniors and disabled folks to the Cliffview Resort in Garrard County in order to help protect them from COVID-19.

“Yesterday, we received word that Garrard County’s first confirmed case was at the Cliffview Resort,” Garrard County Judge Executive John Wilson said. “Due to our concerns about a possible outbreak among this highly vulnerable population, we have been working very closely with the State Health Department and the Catholic Action Center to ensure the safety of everyone involved. Given the unique situation here, I have been authorized to provide additional information to the public that will not be available in future cases.”

The confirmed case from yesterday is from a 50 year old male employee of the Center, according to Wilson. He has been residing there at Cliffview since November, but is now self quarantined in Lexington.

“He had some minor symptoms last week and was tested out of an abundance of caution given the population he works with, but was asymptomatic by the time the results came back,” Wilson said. “Thankfully, we understand that he was primarily an office worker there and had limited contact with the residents there, and when he did he wore a mask. Moreover, he had almost no contact with anyone else in Garrard County. Everyone there will now be quarantined for a period of 14 days per state guidelines. “

Any of Garrard’s first responders making calls to Cliffview will wear personal protective equipment in the future, according to Wilson.

“I want to promise everyone that we are working very hard to ensure that our community is as safe as possible, and in the hours after learning of our first case last night, many of us were working on this until nearly midnight,” Wilson said. “I want to particularly thank Ginny Ramsey, the Director of the Catholic Action Center for her willingness to put in the extra hours last night to ensure that our first responders and our community are as prepared as possible to deal with a potential outbreak there, because should that happen, it’ll impact our entire community. I also want to thank the Board of Directors there for working with us here locally. Finally, our team here has been putting in a lot of stressful hours as well, and I want to thank them again for their efforts. Our police and ambulance employees already have a very stressful job under normal circumstances, and adding COVID-19 concerns to that have made their jobs astronomically more difficult. Please continue to pray for the folks at Cliffview, our first responders, and our community. We are optimistic about the outcome here and are going to get through this together.”