A new executive order from Gov. Andy Beshear tells Kentuckians to not leave the state except for a few specific reasons, including work, shopping for groceries, medical appointments and helping an out-of-state loved one.
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The exceptions do not include going across the Tennessee line to see a favorite barber or to get a pedicure while salons are closed in Kentucky, Beshear’s chief of staff, LaTasha Buckner, said Monday during the governor’s daily briefing.
Beshear announced 42 newly identified cases of COVID-19 and two deaths from the respiratory disease. They are an 88-year-old Kenton County woman and a 90-year-old Simpson County woman. Both had underlying health conditions, he said.
The cases reported Monday bring the state’s total COVID-19 cases to 479. There have been 11 deaths.
Asked how the state could enforce an order telling residents they cannot leave the state, Beshear acknowledged it would be difficult. Instead he urged Kentuckians to do the “right thing” to help curb COVID-19, the deadly and highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
“The only way we are going to get people doing the right thing is because they agree to,” Beshear said.
In addition to the ban on travel out of the state, the order directs anyone returning to Kentucky from a trip to self-quarantine for 14 days.
Last week, Beshear mentioned Christian County as an area of concern for travel across the border. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee had refused to restrict or close some of the businesses that officials in Kentucky and other surrounding states have closed in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Lee changed course Monday afternoon and issued an order that closes nonessential businesses and encourages residents to stay home until April 14.
Kentuckians who go into Tennessee to do business risk exposing more of their neighbors to the disease when they return home, the governor has stressed.
Beshear also responded to a question about one or more churches in Hopkins County, including in Dawson Springs, that have reportedly ignored the order against gatherings of 10 or more people.
Beshear said his grandfather, who was a minister in Dawson Springs, would not have approved of putting his parishioners at risk of contracting a potentially fatal disease.
(Jennifer P. Brown is the editor and founder of Hoptown Chronicle. Reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org.)
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
