CYNTHIANA, Ky. — Kentucky confirmed its first case of COVID-19 six months ago in Harrison County.

After March 6, the health department there turned the community education room into an operation center and built a coronavirus team. Since then, things have evolved.

“We were dealing with a community that was very scared,” said Dr. Crystal Miller, public health director for WEDCO, the public health department that provides services in Bourbon, Harrison, Nicholas, and Scott counties.

She said public health focuses on education, keeping communities safe, and being prepared.

“But once reality sets in, and you have your first case, it gets real,” Miller said. “And that’s what happened to us obviously. We didn’t expect to be the first case. We thought it would be a highly-populated area, one of our larger cities, and we were all shocked when we got the call.”

Back in March, people in Cynthiana woke up to the headline, ‘Don’t Panic, Be Prepared’ when Harrison County became ground zero for Kentucky.

Six months in, Miller says they’ve rapidly expanded.

“It's changed in that, now, involved in testing as well as tracing. We have a large contact tracing team, we have a large testing team,” Miller said.

Now they are accounting for the growing Hispanic population and high positive cases. Miller says they’ve added several bilingual speakers to help educate families.

“We were, in the very beginning, we were using staff in other departments, now we have full-time bilingual tracers to help with the Hispanic population,” Miller said

As schools begin to reopen, Miller said they’re focusing on the fall months and their effect on the elderly population.

“In Kentucky, we have a high rate of elder population taking care of young children, and so we’re concerned with kids going back to school,” Miller said. “But we’re more concerned who takes care of those kids and how this is going to impact them.”

On March 6, Gov. Andy Beshear declared a State of Emergency to help the Commonwealth respond to COVID-19. He also activated the state’s Emergency Management Teams including Public Health and the National Guard.