KY not changing mask requirements amid concerns over spread of COVID-19 variant
Though the World Health Organization has again recommended everyone, including fully-vaccinated people continue wearing masks to protect against a more contagious COVID-19 variant, Kentucky is not heeding that advice, at least right now.
In light of the reiterated guidance, when asked whether Gov. Andy Beshear plans to ask fully-vaccinated Kentuckians to once again don masks, the governor Wednesday afternoon said no, citing the state’s low case count and positivity rate.
“At this time, there is no reason to consider changes in our current approach,” Beshear said in a statement. “Our case count and positivity rate are currently some of the lowest since the beginning of the pandemic and continue to decrease.”
According to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Kentucky has so far confirmed 23 cases of the Delta variant — a highly contagious strain of coronavirus that originated in India and is now responsible for at least one in every five cases in the United States. On Monday, Los Angeles County became the first major city to back peddle on masking when public health officials “strongly recommend[ed]” everyone wear a mask indoors to protect against the variant, “regardless of vaccination status.” Other local leaders across the country are weighing whether to reimpose similar guidance.
Beshear said he continues to rely on guidance from public health experts, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The director of the CDC weighed in early Wednesday morning, splitting with the WHO and reaffirming the federal health agency’s mid May guidance that fully-vaccinated people can safely forgo masks in most indoor and outdoor settings. “If you are vaccinated, you are safe from the variants that are circulating here in the United States,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in an interview on the “Today” show.
In the past, Kentucky has adjusted its coronavirus mitigation policies based on guidance from the CDC. In May, when the CDC said fully-vaccinated people could shed their masks, Beshear immediately followed suit and revised Kentucky’s statewide mask mandate.
Though fully-vaccinated people are largely protected from COVID-19 variants, there are still unknowns about the Delta variant, including whether it’s deadlier than other strains, and whether vaccines are as effective at neutralizing it. A study published earlier this month in The Lancet medical journal concluded that the efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine may be slightly lower when faced with the Delta variant.
But unvaccinated people, or those only partially vaccinated, are by far the most at risk.
In Kentucky, still only about half of the state population is at least partially vaccinated, and a dozen counties have a vaccination rate of 25% or less. Experts warn that the Delta variant — a “variant of concern,” as labeled by the CDC — could lead to surges in parts of the country where a majority of people aren’t vaccinated.
COVID-19 cases have dropped week over week in the last two months in Kentucky, as has the positivity rate, which was 1.88% on Tuesday. The rate of new vaccinations has also slowed considerably. Nearly 2.2 million people (roughly half the population) are at least partially vaccinated — 131,099 of whom were reportedly vaccinated in June, according to the Kentucky Department for Public Health. That’s less than half of the 271,417 people vaccinated in May, and a far cry from the more than 385,000 people inoculated in April.
Even so, unvaccinated Kentuckians are driving the rate of new cases. Last week, Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said 99.92% of all people who tested positive for coronavirus over the last month, as well as 99% of the people hospitalized, were not vaccinated. More than 93% of people who died during that same time were also not vaccinated, he said.
In Shawn Crabtree’s Lake Cumberland District Health Department spanning parts of south central and Eastern Kentucky, all 10 of his counties’ vaccination rates fall below the state rate of 49%. Taylor County has the highest percentage of residents vaccinated, at just over 40%, and Clinton County, the lowest, at 23.9%.
The virus has hit Crabtree’s district hard, and more contagious variants are a cause for concern. Since March of 2020, 1 in 50 people diagnosed with COVID-19 have died, and 1 in 18 who test positive are hospitalized, he said.
Even though a significant portion of his district remains vulnerable to the virus and its variants, case numbers and hospitalizations continue to hold steady. Fear over the Delta variant can be largely allayed, he said, if people would just get the vaccine.
“Since the vaccine is plentiful, people have a choice to protect themselves or not,” Crabtree said. At this point, “if they’re putting themselves in harm’s way, it’s their choice.”
This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 4:00 PM.
