Beshear holds firm on plans to reopen economy

After reporting the largest number of new coronavirus cases yet in one day, Gov. Andy Beshear stuck to his plan for relaxing restrictions against the pandemic.

The new-case total was 625. That included 309 from almost-compete testing at a Western Kentucky prison, but the remainder of 316 was still well over the previous record of 273 in one day, reported on April 19. And there were 14 new deaths, the most in several days.

Beshear said that when recent days are averaged out, the pandemic in the state is “still pretty stable.” The seven-day average had reached a previous high of 175 on Friday, and Beshear’s gradual reopening of businesses is set to begin Monday, despite federal guidelines that call for a two-week “downward trajectory” in cases or positive test results.

Asked about that, Beshear said, “I believe that we can safely engage in phase one” of reopening, through the rest of the month, and that “If we take all these precautions we can do this safely.” He added, “I’m not gonna be afraid to pause things if we believe the situation is dangerous.”

He acknowledged that reopening will lead to more cases, and was asked what public-health data modeling tells him will happen. He suggested that the models may not fully reflect the current experience.

“We believe Kentuckians have shown they can follow the rules and regulations,” he said. “Your actions have done more to flatten the curve than we ever thought was possible in a pandemic. You have rewritten the rule book. You have rewritten all of the modeling.”

He added, “If we see a spike in cases, if we believe we see deaths that are related to work, we’ll be willing to pause and to re-evaluate as we go. Listen, all of this is people doing the best we can, trying to make the best decision we can, and balancing the best rules and restrictions with what people are willing to do and trying to get the maximum compliance out of Kentuckians. They have done an amazing job, but we do need to get some people back to work and I’m trying to do it as safely as I can.”

He pleaded for continued compliance. “You’ve been asked a lot, and you’re gonna be asked a lot more as we safely transition to healthy at work,” he said at the end of his daily briefing. At the start, he recalled sacrifices made by “the greatest generation” in World War II.

He said that generation of Americans had an enemy “they didn’t know they could defeat; we know that we are gonna come out on top,” but can follow their key qualities: personal responsibility, integrity (including compliance), faithful commitment and work ethic. “It’s about slogging it out even when it’s difficult to get the job done, and that’s about where we are in fighting this virus,” he said. “We are in the challenge of our lifetimes and we have to have the work ethic to complete our task.”

Asked what advice he would give to law enforcers and employers, in light of violence some have faced in other states as they try to enforce restrictions, Beshear didn’t answer directly but showed a mask and said, “This is how you make sure your actions don’t kill somebody else. … Violence can’t be our answers.” He wants people to wear masks in public, especially starting Monday.

Prison issues

Beshear said 400 inmates and employees at Green River Correctional Complex in Central City had tested positive, after 1,029 tests, with 52 results pending. He said the 40 percent infection rate is like those at prisons in other states with outbreaks.
Three inmates have died. J. Michael Brown, Beshear’s executive cabinet secretary, said two inmates and two employees are hospitalized, one each in intensive care.

John Cheves of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports inmate Jeffrey Rowland told him Monday in a phone interview, “It’s just insane in here. You’ve got six guys who have tested positive living in my dorm, and they’re exposing … everyone else.” He said contract kitchen workers for Aramark “are not wearing masks like they’re supposed to. The (corrections) officers wear them when they want to.”

Brown said Monday that inmates are being separated depending on whether they have tested positive or not for the virus, whether they have been exposed to it, and if they are medically vulnerable to it. He said the design of the prison makes that easier than at most.

Beshear was asked if he had acted quickly enough. He said he followed recommendations of public-health officials in Kentucky and other states, and “I took the extra step of asking everybody to be tested, and most governors out there aren’t doing that with prisons.”

He said the separation plan “is one a lot of corrections systems wouldn’t do,” because most inmates at Green River are “serving some pretty significant sentences. When you start moving people … into completely different environments, it can be a little dangerous.” He noted that Brown, a former justice secretary, knows the Muhlenberg County prison well.

In other COVID-19 news Tuesday:

• Deputy Workforce Secretary Joshua Benton said people who are on unemployment and get called back to work next week will be able to not show up for work and still get benefits if they are in certain at-risk categories cannot find someone to care for their children.
• Beshear said “It’s not fair in the least” to reopen businesses and not child care, but he said the latter would be too risky. He said he is looking at best practices elsewhere, and when child care reopens, it will be “smaller, much more spread out.”
• The 14 deaths, which brought the state’s death toll to 275, were of a 77-year-old man in Hopkins County, an 89-year-old woman and a 79-year-old man in Boone County, an 85-year-old man in Henderson County, two women in Jackson County, 70 and 59; two men and three woman in Kenton County, 94, 91, 96, 88 and 86; two Jefferson County women, 63 and 69, and a 35-year-old man in Jefferson, who Beshear said is the youngest victim yet.
• Counties reporting more than 10 new cases, other than Muhenberg, were Jefferson, 95; Warren, 42; Kenton, 27; Daviess, 22; Boone, 20; Butler, 14; and Bullitt, 12. Beshear said he would work for continued testing in Warren or an adjoining county.
• In long-term-care facilities, 16 more residents and 10 more employees tested positive, and 13 more deaths were reported, for respective totals of  828, 331, and 152.
• Beshear said everyone in a long-term-care facility will be tested for the virus, and the state will help facilities that want to conduct tests on their own.
• He said on a WKYT-TV special program that there might be “some form of limited visitation” at such facilities this summer.
• Bill Estep of the Herald-Leader tells the story of Michelle Rose Thompson, 58, of Columbia, who volunteered to work on the COVID-19 ward at the Summit Manor nursing home in Adair County, a Signature HealthCare facility, and died April 30. She was also noted on the CBS Evening News. Thompson was the second employee in at the home, and the second in Kentucky, to die of COVID-19, The other was Pamela L. Hughes, who died April 13.
• “Scientists have identified a new strain of the coronavirus that has become dominant worldwide and appears to be more contagious than the versions that spread in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study led by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “In addition to spreading faster, it may make people vulnerable to a second infection after a first bout with the disease, the report warned. … The Los Alamos study does not indicate that the new version of the virus is more lethal than the original,” or that it makes victims more likely to be hospitalized. 
• On the WKYT special, Dr. Mark Daugherty of the University of Kentucky said virologists have found that people are most contagious in the first few days after they get the virus and before they show any symptoms, and that the rate of virus shedding through excretions is greater than for any other virus.