Beshear says groups of 10 or fewer can start gathering the Friday before Memorial Day, and travel ban will expire same day

Residents of the Jackson Manor nursing home in Annville, which reports that 32 residents have recovered from covid-19 after a major ouibreak. (Image from WYMT-TV, Hazard)

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

Gov. Andy Beshear has made May 22, the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, the date that groups of 10 or fewer people can legally gather, instead of May 25, the holiday. He also said Kentucky's ban on travel to and from other states would expire the same day.

"We realize that people are making plans for Memorial Day," Beshear said at his daily briefing. "And I trust that we can do this right, that we can do this safely, and I'd much rather get out there with some good guidance and rules."

He said he was comfortable moving up the dates because "I've got to live in the real world, just like everybody else," and said his goal was to try to get the best results, which is to put guidance in place to keep everyone safe that the maximum number of people will follow.

"Remember, this is a virus where one person doing the wrong thing can spread it to a bunch of people doing the right thing," he said, encouraging people to follow guidance on the website, because "it will help protect you."

He also encouraged people to gather outside whenever possible, and reminded them that unless it involves people who are part of your household, the six-foot social-distancing rule still stands. He advised against sharing plates and utensils, and to avoid  buffets and potlucks or any situation that involves asking people to share food.

He also reminded people to wash their hands frequently and to not touch their eyes, nose or mouth. And if the gathering involves close proximity, wear a mask.

Parents should "plan ahead" for ways to entertain children that will allow them to remain six feet apart, Beshear said. For example, he said it would be better to play laser tag instead of basketball.

He also advised anyone 65 or older, or who has heart, lung or kidney disease, to avoid such gatherings.

"So just plan ahead. Be smart. Know that this is out there and then just try to do the very best you can following all of these rules," he said. "I trust you. You've done a really good job thus far, just be really thoughtful in how you do it and how you go about it."

The travel ban ban has been an important part of "flattening the curve" in the state, but now is the right time to drop it, Beshear said, because he is not seeing the same kind of exodus from hotspots that helped prompt the ban, and he is more comfortable about where some neighboring states are.

He cautioned that if the state starts seeing a spike in cases, "We may have to take some of these steps again."

He encouraged people to remain careful about where they chose to travel, noting that the beach is still a very dangerous place. "Remember, there are hundreds of cases in Western Kentucky related to a trip to the beach," he said, without giving details.

Assistance applications sought: Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman said applications for assistance from the Team Kentucky Fund would be available at 8 a.m. Friday at teamkyfund.ky.gov. She said people are eligible if the pandemic caused them to lose employment or cit their hours or wages by half or more.

Coleman said $3 million has been donated to the fund, and all assistance from it will be provided through vouchers that can be used to pay for rent, mortgage, electricity, gas, water and groceries. Those who qualify for the fund will be limited to $1,000 per household.

The fund is overseen by the Public Protection Cabinet and will be administered through a partnership with Community Action Kentucky, which represents the 23 regional community-action agencies, which have an office in every Kentucky county.

Testing, federal aid: Beshear reiterated that the state has the capacity to conduct more tests than the White House guidelines recommend to successfully re-open the economy, "but to do that we need you to sign up."  So far, 121,246 tests have been run in the state, which is about 2.7 percent of the state's population. The guidelines call for testing at least 2% per month.

"The more testing we have, the safer you are and the more we know what we are able to re-open because we know how many folks out there have it, but aren't showing the signs," Beshear said. "I will say that the data that we've gotten from this from the general population is encouraging."

Beshear said the state has not yet received any of the $97.7 million that U.S. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said would be coming to the state for testing from the CARES Act, but is doing the necessary paperwork and has used other money from the act for that purpose.

Beshear again implored the federal government to provide financial relief for state and local governments, as House Democrats proposed in a bill this week. McConnell called the bill a liberal wish list and said there is no rush to send more aid.

Beshear said, "Every state and every local government in the country is waiting on and is counting on Congress to pass a bill that provides direct budgetary relief. . . . We need them to act, and the sooner the better."

In other covid-19 news Thursday: 

• The 199 new coronavirus cases announced today brought the state's adjusted total to 7,225. Beshear said 385 are in the hospital, 220 are in intensive care, and 2,712 have recovered. Counties with ten or more cases include: Jefferson, 37; Fayette, 32; Warren, 26; and Boone, 21. Click here for the daily summary. 
• Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack said in the daily news release that the 10-year-old with pediatric multisymptom inflammatory syndrome is continuing to improve and said the state health department had issued an advisory on the syndrome yesterday. 
• Beshear reported two new deaths, raising the toll to 328. Both of the deaths were in nursing homes, and were of an 82-year-old man and a 95-year-old woman from Grayson Count. 
• In long-term-care facilities, 20 more residents and six more employees have tested positive for the coronavirus, bringing that number up to a total of 941 residents and 380 staff testing positive for the virus, in 89 facilities. There have been a total of 189 resident deaths and two employee deaths in these facilities. Click here for the daily report. 
• Click here for information for how to register for testing in more than 70 sites throughout the state can be found here.
• Gov. Beshear announced that the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet has been awarded more than $43.7 million from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to help with education programs that have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. He said $30 million will be allotted for K-12 technology assistance and food programs and the rest will be administered by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education. 
• J. Michael Brown, secretary of the Executive Cabinet, said 356 inmates at the Green River Correctional Center have tested positive for the coronavirus, with eight test still pending. He said 22 people have recovered and that two inmates and two employees have been hospitalized. He said the entire inmate population has been successfully separated into four areas, those who have tested positive, those who have tested negative, but have been exposed, those who have tested negative and have no exposure, and those who are medically frail. He added that they had started on a second round of testing, starting with those in the medically frail group. "If these numbers continue, it will be good news for all of us," he said.  
• Fayette County has reported its largest single-day increase in positive coronavirus cases since the outbreak began in March, 72 new cases, with  63 of them inmates at the Federal Medical Center prison, Beth Musgrave reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. That puts the county up to 529 cases total, with 229 of them from the prison. Roughly 16 percent of the prison's population of 1,426 inmates have tested positive, Musgrave reports.  
• Another 69,000 people filed for unemployment insurance last week in Kentucky, bringing the state's total to nearly 743,000 since mid-March, Will Wright reports for the Herald-Leader. Wright reports that more than 36% of the state's workers have filed for unemployment, and many of them haven't been paid.  
•  Kentucky has released six pages of requirements that restaurants will need to meet to be able to re-open on May 22, along with  the additional minimum requirements that other businesses need to reopen safely, Janet Patton reports for the Herald-Leader. Some of the changes will include servers wearing masks, limits of party size to 10 that include people who live in the same household, no cloth tablecloths or napkins, partitions between tables, limits in the number of people entering a restroom at a time, and a reduction of seating to 33% of capacity, she writes. 
• A new study found  that simply talking can spread more than 1,000 covid-19 particles per minute, the Herald-Leader reports. As for wearing a mask, the Herald-Leader writes, "wearing a mask doesn't protect you from infection, but helps curb the spread of the coronavirus, especially by assymptomatic individuals." 
• Terry DeMio with the Cincinnati Enquirer writes about Ted Richardson, 50, who was the first patient that Christ Hospital in Mount Auburn infused with convalescent plasma collected from a survivor of covid-19. Richardson was discharged seven days after the treatment started, free from covid-19, she reports.  
• Signature HealthCARE  announced on May 12 that 32 people diagnosed with covid-19 at Jackson Manor nursing home have recovered from the virus, including 21 of the 27 staff members that were infected, Jordan Whitaker reported for WYMT.  As of today, Jackson Manor has reported 40 positive residents, 23 positive staff and 16 resident deaths on the state reporting site. 
• Terry DeMio with the Cincinnati Enquirer writes in detail about the challenges that isolation presents when someone is battling addiction.  She writes, "The novel coronavirus has taken the stage. But those still in need of help for addiction now must jump new hurdles. These are hurdles that make getting counseling harder, make getting human contact harder and make getting food, clothing and shelter harder."