Beshear: KY won’t repeal its mask mandate anytime soon. 28 new COVID-19 deaths.
Reiterating that Kentucky will not be repealing its mask mandate anytime soon, Gov. Andy Beshear announced 1,068 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Thursday, as well as 28 virus-related deaths.
Earlier this week, Republican governors in Texas and Mississippi lifted coronavirus restrictions, repealing their states’ mask mandates and reopening businesses to full capacity. Kentucky will not do that, Beshear said.
“We’re going to continue to lose people until we’re fully out of the woods and everybody is vaccinated,” he said in a live update. “That’s the reason we’re not going to do what Texas or Mississippi has done. Those decisions will increase casualties when we just have maybe even a matter of months to go.”
The “best news of the day” in Kentucky, Beshear said, is its still-falling positivity rate, which is at 4.45 percent — the lowest since October 12, Beshear said. In Lexington, the rolling seven-day average of new coronavirus cases (just over 57) is at its lowest point since July. Kentucky has confirmed a total of 408,440 cases and 4,732 deaths.
At least 760,585 people have received at least their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine — close to 46,000 of whom received one this week. The administration of doses hit a snag at regional Kroger sites earlier on Thursday in Bowling Green and at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington when servers went down for about 90 minutes, Beshear said.
“While it is an inconvenience, we are going to make sure everybody signed up for today in those locations is going to get vaccinated,” he said.
Next week, the state will add another 157 locations where people can register for a vaccine, for a total of 567 immunization sites. The state is also adding another regional vaccination site with help from Baptist Health La Grange.
In K-12 schools, at least 333 students and teachers have tested positive this week, while 977 students and 83 school personnel are in quarantine. As many schools return to in-person learning, Beshear announced the state will be offering pandemic EBT benefits for the remainder of the school year to students at private and public schools who qualify for free or reduced lunches.
Initially, P-EBT assistance was provided to eligible families with students whose learning went virtual in the first part of the school year. The latest approval allows that assistance to continue, Beshear said. He added that approval is automatic, and “there’s no application process.”
Flood relief efforts continue
As the state’s effort to thwart a deadly virus continues, many people in Eastern Kentucky are struggling with the fallout from devastating flooding after record rainfall over the weekend. More than 60 Kentucky National Guard troops are providing on-the-ground assistance in eight counties, and the Federal Emergency Management Association will arrive on March 8.
Beshear, along with his Senior Advisor Rocky Adkins, who’s from Elliott County, assured those Kentuckians they have not been forgotten.
“I’m here to tell you, we’re here to help,” Adkins said.
The governor said he was fighting for a “federal declaration that includes individual [financial] assistance” in order to “directly help many people out there.”
State gaining unemployment call center
The state is using extra federal money to open a new call center to field inquiries about unemployment insurance claims, said Amy Cubbage, general counsel for the Labor Cabinet.
The call center should be open by the end of April and “will significantly increase our call capacity,” she said. Five percent of the claims filed in 2020 are still pending. Of the roughly 60,000 claims pending from January and February, only 18,000 have valid IDs the state has verified.
This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 4:42 PM.
