Beshear orders all in schools to wear masks, says he's willing to re-institute broader indoor mask mandate 'if necessary'

Governor's Office

By Al Cross

Kentucky Health News

Citing what his health chief called "the fastest and steepest rise of the entire pandemic" Tuesday, Gov. Andy Beshear issued an emergency order requiring masks for everyone over age 2 in schools, preschools, Head Start centers and child-care centers.

"We are to the point where we cannot allow our kids to go into these buildings unprotected, unvaccinated, and face this Delta variant," Beshear said, because the cases in early-opening schools show that "They will not get in-person learning, we will have massive quarantines, and we'll have parents that can't go to work."

Without a mask mandate, "We would be sending them to the deadliest version of a chicken-pox party imaginable," Beshear said, alluding to experts' belief that the variant is about as contagious as chicken pox, which is highly contagious.

Beshear noted that children under 12 can't be vaccinated yet, and Health Commissioner Steven Stack said only a third of Kentucky kids 12 to 17 have had at least one dose of a vaccine. Some Kentucky school districts have required masks, but at least two-thirds have not.

State Department for Public Health graph

Showing graphs of the recent steep increases in coronavirus cases, Covid-19 hospitalizations, intensive-care cases and mechanical ventilation, Beshear said that at the current rate of increase, without some intervention, the state would exceed previous hospital records within two weeks.

Beshear said some hospitals are already filling up and trying to find places to transfer patients. He has said that the hospital situation would be the key as he considers other measures to fight the virus.

"We won't be afraid, if necessary, to institute a statewide mask mandate for indoors outside the home," he said. He imposed such a mandate from July 2020 to June 2021.  

"There is no dispute, other than the junk and lies that people put on the internet, that masks work," he said.

Frankfort School Supt. Houston Barber said the mask mandate in his independent district "has been highly effective in the first two weeks of classes, with a limited number of cases and "no evidence of spread."

Beshear was asked how confident he is that schools will enforce his mandate. "Well, if they care one lick about their kids, they certainly will," he said. "If they claim to be educators, and every single public-health agency, from the CDC to their local health department has said it's the only way to stay in school, and otherwise you're gonna shut down businesses, they will."

Beshear also cited support from teachers' unions, all directors of district and independent county health departments, and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, whose top two officials appeared at his press conference.

"We have been through this cycle before," said Chamber Chair Winston Griffin, president of Laurel Grocery Co. in London. "It greatly impacts the commerce of this state." He said the ultimate solution is vaccination. "This thing is going the wrong way," he said. "Please get a vaccine."

Vaccinated people can catch the virus and spread it without knowing they have it, and they can develop the Covid-19 disease, but the great majority of cases in vaccinated people are mild. Beshear displayed a graph showing that the rate of new cases among the unvaccinated remains five times higher than among the unvaccinated.

Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey and Connecticut have also imposed school mask mandates.

Daily numbers: The state reported 2,500 more coronavirus cases, raising the seven-day average by 100, to 2,154, the highest since Feb. 6. The infection rate is 45.7 per 100,000 residents; counties with rates more than double that rate are Clay, 131.4; Webster, 106; Logan, 100.7; and Union, 94.4.

The share of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus in the last seven days is 11 percent, which Beshear said is the highest since Jan. 11, the height of the pandemic.

The governor said the worst figures of the day are from hospitals. Kentucky hospitals reported 1,251 Covid-19 patients, 339 of them in intensive care and 168 of those on mechanical ventilation. Those numbers have at least doubled in the past two weeks.

Noting the concern of a local health director whose intensive-care unit is full, Beshear said, "This is the most concerning thing I've been told since the pandemic began."

The state reported seven more Covid-19 deaths, raising the total to 7,394 and the seven-day average to 6 per day. Less than two weeks ago, the average was 2.7.