Reopening rules released for KY businesses restarting May 11. 163 new COVID-19 cases.
Gov. Andy Beshear issued regulations Monday for Kentucky businesses that can reopen on May 11, taking another step toward a phased reopening of the state’s economy as the number of new COVID-19 cases remains steady.
Beshear announced 163 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus Monday, bringing the state total to 5,245. He announced eight new deaths, increasing the total to 261.
The regulations come as some of Kentucky’s surrounding states have offered more aggressive reopening plans amid a backdrop of protests across the country by people frustrated with restrictions that have helped stem the spread of the disease.
Dr. Steven Stack, Kentucky’s public health commissioner, said other states may be rushing into reopening and are conducting a “large social experiment.” Stack said he favored the phased approach Beshear has laid out.
“If we lift all of these restrictions very quickly, what will happen is the very problem we’ve sacrificed so much to prevent,” Stack said.
The first wave of openings is restricted largely to businesses without a lot of face-to-face contact — manufacturing, construction, automobile and boat dealerships, office-based businesses at 50 percent capacity, racetracks without fans, photography, and pet care and grooming.
Beshear has released 10 rules that all businesses must follow, including wearing face masks, providing hand sanitizer, conducting onsite temperature and health checks, and referring ill employees for testing. Beshear said Monday that the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce has procured 20,000 3-ply masks for businesses to provide for their employees. They can be purchased for $1 each at kychamber.com/maskorderform. The Kentucky Distillers’ Association has also agreed to sell hand sanitizers to Kentucky businesses at KyHandSanitizer.com.
For non-essential manufacturers returning to operation, the guidelines require staggered work shifts and breaks to avoid a lot of people coming at the same time. Where people can’t stay six feet apart, companies must put up physical barriers. Employees will have to wipe down their workstation with disinfectant when they’re done and the business will have to do away with time clocks that everyone touches.
On construction sites, some of which have remained open during the pandemic, the regulations say all employees must wear face masks and encourages businesses to phase in employees returning to worksites.
Automobile and boat dealerships are only allowed to have 25 percent capacity in their showrooms. The guidelines say all paperwork should be completed electronically and that businesses should communicate with customers over the phone when possible. Customers must be allowed to test drive vehicles without an employee present in order to maintain social distancing.
Office-based businesses are allowed to reopen with 50 percent capacity. Employees must wear masks unless they’re in a personal office or if wearing a mask will risk their health or safety. The guidelines encourage online documents rather than paper documents and suggest that meetings be conducted via telephone.
Racetracks will only be open to authorized employees, which means keeping fans, the press and any guests or family members out of the tracks. The people supporting a horse that is stabled at a track are supposed to remain in the barn, dormitories or tack house unless they’re going to and from the track, doing laundry, picking up food or using the bathroom.
The guidelines for pet care, grooming and boarding are relatively simple. The owner must take the leash or collar off the pet and deliver it curbside in a crate or into an entry room. Workers should not have any contact with customers and payment must be done over the phone or internet.
Beshear added a seventh business category that is allowed to open — photography. The state regulations say photographers will be allowed to operate so long as they only take photos of family units. The guidelines say if the photographer is making a photo of people who live in different households, those people should stay six feet apart. The guidelines also say all photography should be done outside unless an in-studio session is essential.
The second phase of Kentucky’s health care reopening is also set to start Wednesday. This will allow health care providers to begin offering non-urgent outpatient procedures, such as colonoscopies, eye surgeries and heart stents. Most health care providers, including chiropractors and dentists, were allowed to reopen at limited capacities last week.
COVID-19 in Kentucky prison
There are more than 158 active cases of COVID-19 among inmates and staff at the Green River Correctional Facility, according to the Muhlenberg County Health Department, while 17 people have recovered and at least two people have died. The Beshear administration has repeatedly failed to give the number of positive patients during recent daily news conferences, saying they are still waiting on complete results.
“This is what people are seeing all across the country in specific facilities and it is a challenge, it is a concern,” Beshear said.
The prison will use a building for people who have tested positive for the virus and another unit for people who have tested negative but have come in contact with people who have the virus. A third building will be used for people who are medically vulnerable to the disease. The rest will be kept in a fourth building.
“We think this will be used as a model,” said J. Michael Brown, Beshear’s executive cabinet secretary, citing the method of separating the inmates based on risk.
At Roederer Correctional Complex, one inmate and one staff member have tested positive for the coronavirus. At the Federal Medical Center, a federal prison in Lexington, 33 inmates and one staff member have tested positive, according to the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department.
17 drive-thru testing sites
Beshear said there will 17 drive-thru testing sites open this week in Kentucky. He also announced a new partnership with St. Elizabeth Hospital in Northern Kentucky that will open a testing site next week on the border of Kenton and Boone counties. Appointments can be made by calling 1-800-737-7900.
At least 60,046 people in Kentucky have been tested for the virus — around 1.34 percent of the population — as the state has made an effort to ramp up testing. Beshear said the state expects to test more than 2 percent of the population during May, which would be around 89,360 tests.
Still, the number of people tested between April 26 and May 2 decreased by 2,743 test from the week before.
Many of the tests have been performed in nursing homes, where at least 812 residents have tested positive for the virus. There have been 139 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes, which make up 53 percent of all coronavirus-related deaths in the state.
The Beshear Administration will soon hire about 600 contact tracers — people who will attempt to identify anyone who has come in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus as things reopen.
Beshear said the “new normal” will be involve people agreeing to quarantine for two weeks after coming in contact with people who test positive for the virus.
“Until there is a vaccine, we’ll never be able to do 100 percent of what we used to do,” Beshear said.
This story was originally published May 4, 2020 at 5:59 PM.
