KY bars can reopen. Glitch causes ‘artificially low’ COVID-19 case number of 275.
As he announced at least 275 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Monday, Gov. Andy Beshear pointedly asked school districts across the state to wait until September 28 before opening their doors for in-person instruction.
“In my very core, I want us to get back to in-person instruction, but to ask our kids to go in and all our teachers and faculty at a time when it’s not safe is not something we can ask of them, and I’m not willing to,” he said in the Capitol Rotunda, calling it a “tough” recommendation to make, “but one that we believe can give us some success.”
The Democratic governor also gave the go-ahead for bars and restaurants across the state to reopen on Tuesday at 50 percent capacity inside, but to stop serving food and drinks at 10 p.m. and close at 11 p.m. He urged those establishments to prioritize outdoor seating, require people wear masks, and to enforce a seated rule for patrons, which means “no congregating. You’re in that seat unless you’re going to the bathroom, and then you’re back in that seat,” Beshear said.
He closed bars and reduced restaurant capacity two weeks ago, when the state’s infection rate was surging. It has still not flattened fully. The rate of people testing positive, a seven-day rolling average, was at 5.71 percent on Monday. If a state’s infection rate exceeds 5 percent, the White House asks they consider closing bars and reducing restaurant capacity.
That guidance from the governor’s office on schools was expected after the state teachers union, the Kentucky Education Association, asked on Friday that schools provide virtual learning, only, until the state’s rate of people testing positive falls below 5 percent. Over the weekend, it exceeded 6 percent.
Waiting for six weeks will hopefully provide the buffer of time for Kentucky’s new case rate to decline, which has yet to happen, he said. The infection rate is still in its apex, and “the concept that we would try to resume classes at our peak,” he said, “is something that would defy logic.”
Beshear, emphasizing that “we do not have control over this virus,” asked people to not put much stock in Monday’s number of new cases, noting they are “artificially low” because of a “computer glitch” that the state is in the process of ironing out. The state’s case total is now at least 35,254.
Rising numbers of infections in children contributed to the state’s recommendation to delay in-person classes — 13 kids under age 5 were diagnosed on Monday — as did the fact that families with school-age kids continue to travel to other states with dangerously high infection rates, Beshear said.
“While we have put our travel advisory up, we continue to see families going to the beach,” he chided. “Every time that happens, you can bring it back.”
Two more people with COVID-19 have died: a 60-year-old woman in Graves County and a 98-year-old woman in Lincoln County. Monday’s new cases included four residents and five staff at nursing and assisted living homes, as well as seven staff and five kids at child care centers.
There are 641 people hospitalized with the virus, 155 of whom are in intensive care. At least 8,738 people have recovered and 700,147 tests have been administered.
Beshear critical of Trump’s relief order
Over the weekend, President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders to disperse pandemic relief, but Beshear, calling it a well-intentioned misfire, said it falls short in not restoring the additional $600 in federal unemployment benefits that so many Kentuckians need.
Earlier on Monday, in a phone conference with New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, Beshear said, “my motivation today is not to criticize, and it is not to suggest the president’s order wasn’t intended to help.” But in its current form, he said at his daily briefing, “it’s not workable.”
That’s in part because the executive measures require states to chip in 25 percent of those federal unemployment costs through the end of the year, which would add up to $1.5 billion in Kentucky — an ask not feasible for the commonwealth and many other states, whose economies are “already struggling,” Beshear said.
“We need congressional action or a change in that executive order to move forward,” he said. “The future of our economy absolutely depends on it.”
This story was originally published August 10, 2020 at 4:38 PM.
