Beshear issues mask order, blasts judge and attorney general for order requiring his orders to be more specific, vows appeal

Beshear played a video of Coach John Calipari endorsing the wearing of masks. He said Calipari volunteered.

This story is being updated.

By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News

Gov. Andy Beshear issued an emergency order Thursday requiring Kentuckians to wear face coverings in public to prevent a growing spread of the coronavirus.

"You can think there’s some liberty component, but that ends when you put the health and safety of someone else at risk," Beshear said near the end of a Capitol-rotunda briefing at which he announced and explained his decision.

He said he acted because of an increase in cases (with 333 more reported in the state Thursday, its seven-day rolling average spiked to 315 from 211 in just six days) and "watching what happens when people didn't act quickly enough across the country."

He compared Kentucky to Arizona, which had a similar number of daily cases two months ago but is  now running out of hospital beds. "That’s what happens when this virus gets away from you," he said. "We can’t wait until we are getting thousands a day."

Covid-19 hospitalizations and intensive-care cases in Kentucky remained steady Thursday, but recent increases have left only 26 percent of ICU beds available, and "They can get eaten up real quickly if you let your covid numbers get away from you," the governor said.

Kentucky Health News chart; hospital data for most weekends unknown. For larger version, click on it.

Beshear's order takes effect at 5 p.m. Friday. It requires a mask or other face covering indoors or outdoors "where it is difficult to maintain a physical distance of six feet from all individuals who are not members of that person's household," or while in, or waiting for, public or hired transportation.

It has several exceptions, including children under 6 and people who can't safely wear masks. It says violation "must result in loss of access to a business's services," making businesses the front-line enforcers.

Beshear said enforcement will ultimately depend mainly on local health departments, but he said the state and national lobbying groups for retailers asked for the order. "We have 'No shoes, no shirt and no service'," he said, citing a familiar sign. "It's now 'No mask, no service'."

The governor said enforcement would start with warnings, but businesses that fail to enforce the rule could be fined or shut down. He said the latter option would apply to an unnamed Western Kentucky restaurant where he said employees did not wear masks last weekend.

Restaurant customers will be required to wear masks except when eating or drinking. He said that rule in bars would "go a long way," but he will meet with bar owners Friday to talk about "what other steps they could take to prevent congregation. . . . I want to give them the opportunity to stay open if they're willing to do the things they need to."

Beshear said he had hoped to avoid issuing the order, “but it’s time to get serious. It's time to stop our escalation now. It's time to push these numbers back down to a reasonable plateau.”

Without that, he said, "We will have to roll back parts of our reopening . . . We probably will have problems reopening schools." He suggested his order would overcome resistance to the state guideline for masks in schools. "If parents wear a mask in public, their kids are gonna wear a mask in school," he said.

The order is effective for 30 days, during which "I want to see how well we can do," Beshear said, adding that he would based future acts on numbers of cases, the positive-test rate and hospital capacity. "I believe if we all embrace this, we could even eventually see a decline," he said.

At another point, he said perhaps 20 percent of Kentuckians resist masks due to "personal pride or some belief that we have liberty to spread this thing to others and therefore shouldn’t have wear something like this." He said the test would be whether "we truly care about each other and our economy . . . put those feelings aside, and serve the greater good."

"Is it too much to ask? I don’t think so."

He noted science showing that masks protect both the wearers and those around them from the virus: "If you weren't willing to do it for other people before, I hope you're willing to do it for yourself and your family now."

Health Commissioner Steven Stack said, "Because you stayed healthy at home Kentucky's not at the bottom of the pack in public health; it's at the top. If you don’t keep up the simple things we’re now asking of you ... it'll all be undone. . . .All we’re asking you to do is a simple act of kindness."

Courts and politics: Beshear said he would appeal to overturn a temporary restraining order from Scott Circuit Judge Brian Privett telling him not to issue or enforce any more emergency orders unless he states "the emergency that requires the order, the location of the emergency, and the name of the local emergency management agency that has determined that the emergency is beyond its capabilities."

Privett issued the order in a lawsuit filed by Evans Orchard & Cider Mill of Georgetown, seeking relief from Beshear's limits on attendance at the agri-tourism facility. The injunction bars Beshear from enforcing any emergency order against the business "or any of the 547 other such registered facilities.

Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who joined the lawsuit, announced the ruling in a press release: “The governor cannot issue broad, arbitrary executive orders apart from the requirements of state law. . . . This is a clear win for the rule of law and will help Kentucky families and businesses across the commonwealth who have suffered and continue to suffer financial losses and economic hardship because of the governor’s executive orders.”

Beshear said the order from "Judge Whatshisname" was "absolutely irresponsible," and he also lit into Cameron: "This shouldn’t be political, and it all seems to be; the attorney general in Kentucky is the only AG in the country suing the governor over these restrictions."

After Beshear's briefing, Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles issued a release saying in part, "The process has not treated everyone the same. Why do well-connected amusement parks with lobbyists get to talk to the government, but mom-and-pops get ignored?"

In other covid-19 news Thursday:

• Beshear reported four more deaths from covid-19, raising the state's death toll to 612. The
  fatalities were a 93-year-old woman from Clark County; a 79-year-old man from Edmonson County; a 94-year-old man from Knox County; and a 61-year-old man from Pike County.
• Counties with more than 10 new cases were Jefferson, 86; Fayette, 42; Daviess, 15; Warren, 13; Bell, 12, and Boone, 11. Beshear said people in Bell County "will tell you how quickly you can got from having just a handful of cases to a significant number just in the last three or four days."
• The U.S. reported more than 60,000 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, the biggest increase ever reported by any country in a single day. Tennessee and West Virginia both had record daily increases, and infections are rising in 42 out of 50 states, Reuters reports.
• Beshear warned against vacationing on a beach in Florida, which is a covid-19 hotspot: "You’re likely to bring covid back, and it will hurt your community."
• He urged Kentuckians to get tested for the virus: "If you are regularly in contact with other people it’s time to get tested."
• Some test providers and insurers have required an order from a clinician for a test, but Stack said the state has issued an order banning such requirements.
• The Atlantic explores why daily covid-19 deaths in the U.S. are a fourth of their April peak, even as cases rise: There can be lags between the date a person dies and when that death is reported; expanded testing also helps find more cases, which tend to be milder; the average patient is now younger and less likely to die; hospitals are more prepared and less overrun; and some studies show summer temperatures might be helping.
• A horse named Fauci won a race at Keeneland Race Course. The 2-year-old colt's owner, a fellow Italian American, named him for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease specialist.