For the second day in a row, there was a drop of more than 100 in new cases of the coronavirus, sparking some optimism that we may be experiencing the second plateau in Kentucky.

There were 463 new cases of COVID-19 reported to state health officials on August 2, including 11 from children age five and younger. Sunday’s additions bring the state’s pandemic total to at least 31,185 positive cases.

While there were 659 new cases on Thursday, on Friday the total jumped to 778. That fell to 572 on Saturday and to 463 on Sunday. While the number of cases reported on Sundays have normally dropped during the pandemic, since some labs do not report over the weekend, you may recall Kentucky’s record high day for new cases was two Sundays ago, July 19.

“We appear to be seeing what we all hope is a plateau in the alarming growth of coronavirus cases in the commonwealth,” said Gov. Andy Beshear. “It shows that wearing a mask, social distancing and not traveling to virus hot spots is working. We need to see this trend continue to avoid having to make more hard choices and sacrifices.”

There were also two new deaths reported on Sunday, raising the total to 742 Kentuckians lost to the virus. They include a 56-year-old man from Oldham County and a 70-year-old woman from Muhlenberg County.

State Public Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack called this a pivotal time, as we enter a new month. “A month in which we will implement ‘Healthy at School’ guidelines, as students and teachers return to classrooms. I’m cautiously optimistic we have blunted our steep COVID-19 escalation with the mask requirement, restriction of gatherings to 10 or fewer people, bar closings, and restaurant capacity restrictions.”

He continued, “This is a prolonged challenge, though. As we continue to fight COVID-19 with personal choices that include responsible decisions about travel, crowd sizes, thorough and frequent hand-washing and wearing face masks, there’s still a need to keep other public health considerations in mind, conditions that don’t care that there’s a global pandemic going on.”

Gov. Beshear added, “While I know we all hoped months ago when this pandemic first arrived in Kentucky that we’d be closer to a decisive victory, we remain at war with the coronavirus. We need everyone in this fight, to save lives, to save our economy and to help get our kids back in school. I know we have what it takes and that we’ll do what it takes, because we care about one another.”

While new testing numbers, the positivity rate, hospitalizations and other information will not be updated until Monday, you can read about Healthy at School, Healthy at Wor,k and other key actions and information from the Beshear Administration at kycovid19.ky.gov.