Gov. Andy Beshear has ordered a mandatory mask requirement for the state to help curb the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The executive order goes into effect at 5 p.m. Friday. It is initially for 30 days.
“Wearing a mask makes a lot of sense,” Beshear said Thursday during a press briefing in the Kentucky Capitol Rotunda. “Is it too much to ask? I don’t think so.”
The order applies to everyone except children under the age of 5 and to those with certain medical conditions, such as asthma.
A video of Kentucky men’s basketball coach John Calipari, making a pitch for facial coverings, was played during the briefing.
“Let’s take it up a notch,” Calipari said, holding a UK blue mask.
A mask is not a statement, it’s a way to protect others and the person wearing the mask, the coach said.
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A mask that covers the nose and mouth stops small droplets that can carry the virus when a person talks, coughs or sneezes. Health experts stress that masks are effective because many people infected with the virus do not have symptoms and don’t know they pose a risk to others when they leave home.
Beshear said he ordered the mask requirement because recent increases in coronavirus cases threaten to escalate the spread in Kentucky. He said he doesn’t want Kentucky to experience the kind of spike seen in other states that now face hospital bed shortages.
“We are seeing an explosion of COVID where we are seeing record numbers of new cases in this country every day,” Beshear said. “… Almost every day in July is setting a record pace.”
Kentucky joins more than 20 states with a mask order.
The state made sacrifices early in the epidemic that will “all be undone” without widespread use of masks in public, said Kentucky Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack.
“All we are asking you to do is a simple act of kindness,” Stack said.
Local health departments and others will enforce the mask order, said Beshear.
Customers in groceries, retail stores and other forward-facing businesses should be denied service if they won’t wear a mask, he said.
Individual rights do not extend to people whose behavior puts other people are risk, he said.
Kentucky reported 334 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, raising the state’s total since the start of the pandemic to 18,245. Of those, 4,939 have recovered from the disease. There were four deaths reported Thursday, pushing the death toll to 612. To date, 461,756 coronavirus tests have been administered.
The executive order states masks are required as follows:
“While inside, or waiting in line to enter, any: retail establishment; grocery store; pharmacy; hair salon/barbershop; nail salon/spa; tattoo parlor; child care facility; restaurant or bar (when not seated and consuming food or beverage); health care setting, or; any other indoor public space in which it is difficult to maintain a physical distance of at least six feet from all individuals who are not members of that person’s household;
“While waiting for or riding on public transportation or paratransit, or while riding in a taxi, private car service, or ride-sharing vehicle, or driving any of the above while customers are present; or
“While in outdoor public spaces in which the person cannot maintain a physical distance of six feet from all individuals who are not members of the person’s household and is not otherwise covered by previously issued guidance.”
(Jennifer P. Brown is the editor and founder of Hoptown Chronicle. Reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org.)
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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.
