Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced today during a press briefing that the state will be taking two additional steps to combat its rising coronavirus cases: closing all bars and reducing indoor restaurant capacity to 25% for the next two weeks.
“Our state government and the federal administration have significant agreement on what we need to do right now to make sure we don’t turn into Florida, Texas, Arizona, so many other states,” Beshear said.
Kentucky is reporting 522 new cases of COVID-19 today — 21 of those in children under 5, one of whom is an 11-day-old infant — bringing the overall total to 27,601 cases. The state currently has a 5.58% positivity rate, with 609 individuals hospitalized for COVID-19 and 131 in the ICU. There were nine new deaths reported today.
“The line and the trend is undeniable. We are in an escalation of cases where our positivity rate also continues to increase,” Beshear said.
After discussing Kentucky with the White House and its Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, Beshear said they are in agreement that with more than 74 Kentucky counties falling under a White House-defined red or yellow COVID classification, the “virus is escalating and spreading so much statewide that statewide action is necessary.”
“That’s the position of the Trump administration. That’s the position of this state government,” Beshear said.
The White House has four recommended steps that states with escalating COVID issues should take:
- Instituting a 30-day statewide mask mandate, which Kentucky did July 10.
- Limiting social, non-commercial gatherings to 10 people or less, which Kentucky did July 20.
- Closing bars for two weeks, which will be effective starting tomorrow — midnight, July 28.
- Limiting indoor restaurant capacity to 25% for two weeks. Outdoor capacity can remain unlimited with social distancing.
Also recommended: Schools, both public and private, should postpone in-person instruction until the third week of August.
Beshear said the White House thinks these four steps can be as effective as the state’s Healthy at Home — or stay at home — program, which helped flatten the curve before Kentucky saw a large initial wave of infections.
After the two-week closure and reduction in capacity for bars and restaurants, the state will reevaluate COVID data — the positivity rate, overall number of cases, hospitalizations and ICU admissions, Beshear said — to decide what to do next.
The hope is that after those two weeks, restaurants will be back 50% indoor capacity and bars can reopen in some way, with some stricter guidelines in place. He said people should expect that the statewide public mask mandate be extended.
“I’m not confident that every bar can survive the next two weeks. It’s not fair to those that have done it responsibly, and I’m not going to pretend that it’s fair. And I’m not going to pretend like there’s some small businesses that won’t make it through this,” Beshear said. “But I’m dealing with an international health pandemic that threatens the lives and the health of our people, the overall health of our economy, and I’ve got every public health expert from the White House down to the state saying we absolutely have to do this, otherwise we’re going to have to have more widespread closures.”
This bar closure order does not impact distilleries, which are considered “venues” under the Kentucky Healthy at Work guidelines. Bars that serve food can continue to remain open, but they “must look like a restaurant,” said Beshear, which means everyone has a seat and people must wear masks when they aren’t eating or drinking.
Beshear said they will also be working with local governments on ways to expand outdoor seating for restaurants.
Read the full executive order here.
Due to rising #COVID19 cases we are having to take additional steps to curb the spread. All bars are closed for 2 weeks and restaurants will be operating at 25% capacity indoors. pic.twitter.com/3syvMQyZah
— Governor Andy Beshear (@GovAndyBeshear) July 28, 2020
When opening today’s briefing, Beshear displayed a graph showing the significant escalation of COVID cases in the U.S., with press clippings about Florida passing New York in its number of confirmed cases and Texas seeing 1,000 deaths over the course of six days.
“We do not want this to happen in this state,” he said. “But we know, looking back, at one point, Florida and Texas were just where we are today — with cases that were increasing some, with seeing more activity out there — and right now, we can look at what’s happened to them and know that we absolutely have to act.”
He added that Dr. Birx told him and Dr. Steven Stack, commissioner for the Kentucky Department for Public Health, she had the same conversations about closures and steps with Florida and Texas “weeks before the worst of the worst happened.”
Beshear also showed a photo of a bar in downtown Lexington with a hundred or so people “way closer than 6 feet” — “not a mask in this picture at all,” Beshear said.
“People huddled together acting like this isn’t real. And, unfortunately not following — I don’t think — a single guideline that we’ve put in place.”
“We all have to start out with believing and understanding that this is real, that the virus doesn’t just go away and that wherever you live in Kentucky, the virus is spreading and spreading significantly in your community,” Beshear said.
And when asked why he’s closing bars and reducing restaurant capacity when about two-thirds of Kentucky’s COVID-19 deaths have come from long-term care facilities, he said evidence shows that long-term care spread starts in bars before those 20- and 30-year-olds spread the disease to their parents in the 60-year-old age group, and then COVID moves in to long-term care facilities.
“Every individual’s actions can impact the life of another Kentuckian. Every individual’s actions can impact our ability to keep our economy open,” he said.
This article appears in The Summer Guide.