Southern Baptist Convention opposes in vitro fertilization, passing resolution offered by head of denomination's Louisville seminary

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President
Albert Mohler spoke in a YouTube video on May 23.

UPDATE, June 15: For a New York Times story on how the resolution was developed, and its political ramifications, click here.

Kentucky Health News

The Southern Baptist Convention voted Wednesday to oppose the use of in vitro fertilization, in which many human embryos are created outside the body but only one or a few are implanted in the uterus.

The resolution, adopted at the denomination's annual meeting in Indianapolis, was offered by R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Andrew T. Walker, an associate professor of Christian ethics and public theology at the Louisville school.

The two "acknowledged that the issue is divisive even among strongly anti-abortion Christians, and that Republicans have leaped to preserve access to fertility treatments," reports Ruth Graham of The New York Times. She quoted from an interview in which Mohler said: “I want to do more than nudge Republicans who are against us on this. I want to call them out for their error and inconsistency.” He said IVF as commonly practiced is “as immoral as anything we can imagine if we state the proposition clearly, but a lot of evangelicals don’t want to state the proposition clearly.”

Mohler told Politico that he is “very frustrated” with Republicans who favor legislation protecting IVF: “A lot of them are responding out of political expediency, not out of moral principle. You can’t say on one hand life begins at fertilization and then on the other hand say but now we’re not so concerned about that in this other arena.”

 

After the Alabama Supreme Court outlawed IVF this year, Republican politicians there and in other GOP-controlled states scrambled to protect the process. A bill to protect IVF in Kentucky got no hearing, and state law on the topic is unclear. Action by Congress is unlikely because 60 votes woudl be needed to pass such legislation through the Senate.

The Southern Baptist Convention is Kentucky's largest religious denomination. As of 2021, 1.2 percent of births in Kentucky involved the use of assisted reproductive technologies, mainly IVF; the U.S. rate was 2.3%.

The resolution is not binding on any church or member. It asks Southern Baptists “to reaffirm the unconditional value and right to life of every human being, including those in an embryonic stage, and to only utilize reproductive technologies consistent with that affirmation, especially in the number of embryos generated in the IVF process.”

The resolution also urges Southern Baptists to “advocate for the government to restrain” actions inconsistent with the dignity of “every human being, which necessarily includes frozen embryonic human beings.” In other words, unusued embryos should be frozen, not destroyed.

"Although the process . . . often results in the destruction of unused embryos, many Southern Baptists see that as fundamentally different from abortion because the goal of fertility treatments is to create new life," Graham reports. Convention messengers, or delegates, "heard several emotional testimonies, some from Baptists who hoped to soften the language of the resolution."

Megan Messerly of Politico reports, "As evangelicals become more educated on the issue, they are largely falling into two camps: those who believe that IVF can be practiced ethically if no embryos are destroyed, and those who like Mohler and Walker believe IVF is inherently unethical because it separates conception from the act of sex between husband and wife. Walker, acknowledging the former view, noted the resolution was 'drafted to pass.' A last-minute amendment sought to make clear that IVF is permissible in some circumstances, but failed."

Vote counts were not announced, but a convention spokesman told The Wall Street Journal that the resolution passed overwhelmingly.

At a Monday luncheon "hosted by a new conservative Christian advocacy group with Southern Baptist ties, Mohler compared the nascent evangelical conversation around in vitro fertilization to the years after the Roe v. Wade decision, when Catholics led the anti-abortion movement and evangelicals were less attuned to the issue," Graham reports, quoting him: “We had to learn after 1973 as evangelicals. We had to learn how to get this issue right.”

The Southern Baptist Convention did not declare its opposition to abortion until several years after the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned itself in 2022 in a case styled Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

Election prompts a look at Beshear's pandemic restrictions, and Cameron's challenges to them; Kentucky fared better than feared

Gov. Andy Beshear, right, and Dr. Steven Stack, the state’s public-health commissioner, at a news conference in the governor's Capitol suite in May 2020. (Photo by Sarah Ladd, Kentucky Lantern)

By Sarah Ladd
Kentucky Lantern
     
On March 6, 2020, a Kentuckian tested positive for the novel coronavirus, Covid-19, and Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency.

The United States had been under a public health emergency for more than a month by then. Five days after Kentucky’s first confirmed case, the World Health Organization said COVID-19 was officially a pandemic.

The NCAA canceled March Madness rather than “contribute to spread” of the virus. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art shuttered temporarily. NASCAR suspended racing.

We had entered a time like nothing Americans had experienced since the flu epidemic of 1918. In other words, it was “uncharted territory,” said Dr. Paul McKinney, the University of Louisville’s interim dean of the School of Public Health and Information Sciences, in a September interview with the Kentucky Lantern.

Over the next three years, around 2 million Covid-19 tests came back positive in Kentucky. More than 19,000 Kentuckians died.

Beshear issued more orders, including restricting mass gatherings, closing schools and releasing some medically at-risk prisoners.

Now some Republicans are urging Kentuckians to make Beshear a one-term governor based on his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Andy Beshear has failed us,” says an ad by Republican nominee and Attorney General Daniel Cameron. “He locked our schools and unlocked our jails. We can do better.”

A pro-Cameron PAC is running ads accusing a “criminal coddling governor” of having unleashed dangerous criminals on Kentuckians.

To help voters navigate the criticisms, the Lantern is looking back at the pandemic, a time of economic upheaval, rapidly changing guidance and rampant misinformation.

‘Flying blind’

At the beginning, the response to Covid-19 was “a blunt instrument,” said UofL’s McKinney, “because what could we do at that point? We had no antiviral medications to use, we didn’t have a vaccine. We didn’t have adequate testing; we didn’t have enough (personal protective equipment) to go around. All we had was basically the ability to trace contacts of people who were exposed and to … implement social distancing.”

Tim Veno, CEO of an organization of nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Kentucky, agreed.

“We were pretty well flying blind,” he said. “We had no test or any way to determine who may or may not have had Covid.”

Until the science caught up, social mitigation was the only option.

In March 2020, Beshear, who had been governor three months, issued a variety of recommendations and orders based on guidance from public-health authorities, meant to slow the virus’ spread.

Almost as quickly, Attorney General Cameron began challenging some of the orders in court.

Not all of Beshear’s orders were restrictive. He streamlined the process for out-of-state nurses to work in Kentucky, suspended evictions and expanded eligibility for unemployment benefits.

The unemployment system was quickly overwhelmed by the influx of applications, and people waited months for help. Meanwhile, Louisville’s WDRB reported that Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman texted the head of the Office of Unemployment Insurance to get attention to her hairdresser’s application, as well as that of a “friend of a friend.” The administration maintained that there was no abuse of power.

Beshear also began holding daily, virtual news conferences, broadcast across the state, to share information about the virus. Health experts praised this move, but it rankled some of his political opponents.

And, he encouraged Kentuckians to light their homes green in memory of those lost to Covid-19.

Spring 2020: A ‘somber’ experience

When Beshear recommended that schools close for a few weeks, Louisville high-school freshman Spandana Pavuluri, now 18, remembers thinking the time would be “just like an extended spring break.” Two weeks to catch up on homework, nothing more.

Before the end of March, though, the virus closed all public-school buildings in the U.S., according to Education Week.

The extended remote learning and loss of social connections in a pivotal time of her life “hit me like a truck,” Pavuluri said, describing the time as “somber.”

Her bedroom, where she did school, became a “place of … stress,” not relaxation. The “really social person” was suddenly very alone, a sentiment reflected back to her from other students in research she helped conduct with the Kentucky Student Voice Team.

On top of school closures, in April 2020, Beshear halted elective surgeries so medical staff and supplies could be fully employed in addressing Covid-19. He closed the Natural Bridge and Cumberland Falls state resort parks and suspended overnight stays at other resort parks.

When several individuals sued the state challenging Beshear’s restrictions on interstate travel, Cameron took their side in court. A federal judge in a different case ruled that parts of the travel order were unconstitutional. Beshear lifted it before Memorial Day.

The state shut down visits to nursing homes except in end-of-life situations. Leaders feared that visitors would bring Covid-19 to the most vulnerable.

“That, of course, was devastating to some families,” said Veno, president and CEO of LeadingAge Kentucky.

“After that, we mobilized very quickly in setting up remote communication, iPads and other connected devices so that we could immediately, at least, at the very minimum, allow residents and families to talk via the internet,” Veno said. “Those were all very difficult decisions to make.”

Despite “some political blowback” from those moves, Veno said, “in my view, that action saved lives.”

 
On churches, did the governor go too far?

After Beshear banned gatherings of more than 10 people, and a religious revival in Hopkins County was linked to at least 28 cases of the virus and two deaths, some churches kept holding in-person services.

Maryville Baptist Church in Bullitt County gathered on Easter Sunday despite the order. The pastor found nails in the parking lot before the service. And attendees found notices placed by state troopers on their windshields telling them to quarantine.

The church and Tabernacle Baptist Church in Nicholasville sued Beshear. As attorney general, Cameron joined their lawsuits.

Two federal district judges ruled that Beshear’s ban on religious gatherings was unconstitutional and that the churches could hold in-person services while observing precautions against spreading the virus. But the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals disagreed, allowing the restriction on in-person services to stand. The appeals court did block Beshear’s ban on drive-in services.

By then Beshear had agreed to allow places of worship to gather. But many chose to wait. The Rev. Kent Gilbert, pastor of historic Union Church in Berea, told the Lexington Herald-Leader at the time, “No pastor wants to race back to church to do more funerals.”

Todd Gray, the executive director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, told the Lantern that the denomination’s pastors and church leaders “made their own decisions” about protecting congregants. They “sought to be good citizens working in cooperation with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and from Frankfort,” he said.

The theological belief that Christians must gather together also factored into some congregations coming back to in person services “as quickly as possible,” said Gray.

“While most Kentucky Baptist churches sought to cooperate with the governor’s recommendations as much as they could,” Gray said, “most, if not all, believed the governor went too far when he specifically targeted churches while some businesses such as liquor stores remained open.” Beshear's order did not mention churches.

Politicizing a pandemic

In May 2020, angered over the shutdowns, protesters opposed to Covid-19 restrictions hanged Beshear in effigy outside the state Capitol and marched to the governor’s mansion demanding he resign.

Attached to the effigy was a sign with the words “sic semper tyrannis,” Latin for “thus ever to tyrants,” the motto of Virginia, which John Wilkes Booth famously said after shooting President Abraham Lincoln.

Republicans and Democrats alike decried those actions. Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican, tweeted at the time that “The words of John Wilkes Booth have no place in the Party of Lincoln.”

There were other protests of the shutdowns and social-distancing and masking measures. Misinformation was rampant, including a claim that the pandemic itself was a hoax. The politicization of the pandemic made it harder for health care workers do their jobs, they said.

“It was extremely difficult for hospitals,” said Deborah Campbell, the vice president for clinical strategy and transformation at the Kentucky Hospital Association.

In early 2021, when vaccines became available, Kentucky gave first priority to health care workers and staff in long-term care and assisted-living facilities followed by those over 70, first responders, K-12 school personnel and child care workers.

Many, including some health care workers, refused vaccination against the virus. Once vaccines were mandated by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, those who refused the shots could no longer work in hospitals, Campbell said.

“It was terribly painful. It was painful for the staff, it was painful for the hospital leadership,” Campbell said,  but precautions did save lives. They also kept hospitals running better than if no mitigation measures had been in place.

Fewer sick people “means more staff were not sick and able to take care of patients in the hospital, which means they got better care, which means they did better,” she said.

Still, health-care workers often bore the brunt of people’s anger.

Some hospital visitors and even patients treated health care workers in a “demoralizing” way, said Campbell. They spit on and cursed them.

“People were threatened. Workplace violence increased in our hospitals, particularly around visitation, and any personal-freedom restrictions,” Campbell said. “Those visitation restrictions were heart-wrenching. But at some point … I think it was pretty clear it was the right thing to do.”

Veno said that in his 20 years working in health care, “I’ve never seen this kind of public reaction, anti-vaccination reaction as I saw with Covid.”

All of this helped feed burnout and exacerbated an already worsening medical workforce crisis.

 
On the economy

About 18% of Kentucky’s businesses had to close because of a government mandate during 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s similar to the nationwide share of about 19%.

The state designated workers as “essential” and “nonessential” to determine which employers could stay open with more flexibility. Grocery workers, for example, were deemed essential. Jewelry and clothing stores were not.

The designations remain a sore spot for some. Cameron has said he wants to make Beshear “not essential” come Election Day.

The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy reported in May that the state lost 294,900 jobs in just the first two months of the pandemic. Businesses permanently closed left and right. Thousands across the country shuttered.

“In the three years since, Kentucky has experienced a remarkable recovery,” Kentucky Policy said. It reported Kentucky had 53,800 more jobs than before Covid-19 hit the state.

Cameron said in October that, had he been governor at the time, he would not have closed small businesses and health spaces like chiropractor’s offices. He criticized what he called “inconsistency” in Beshear’s decisions.

“There are a lot of small businesses right now that have not been able to recover,” Cameron said. “Several of them closed their doors for good.”

Prisons: a ‘public health failure’

Among other steps to stifle Covid-19’s spread, Beshear closed restaurants to in-person traffic, suspended out-of-state travel for state employees, and stopped prison visits.

Beshear commuted the sentences of 1,870 inmates who were medically vulnerable and who had not been convicted of violent or sexual offenses and were withing six months of their release date.

Cameron and his allies have criticized Beshear’s pre-release vetting. They’ve cited data from the Administrative Office of the Courts that shows about half of 1,700 commutation recipients were charged with another crime by July 2023.

The Courier Journal of Louisville and the Herald-Leader have reported, though, that many of those re-offenders would have been free to commit their alleged subsequent crimes because their original prison sentences would have expired by then anyway. Beshear says they were "the vast majority."

Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts-based national nonprofit that researches criminalization in the United States, reported in April that Kentucky’s overall incarceration population decreased 13% from January 2020 to December 2021. The national average in that perios was 15%.

Wanda Bertram, a communications strategist with Prison Policy Initiative, says the real mistake by Kentucky and most states was not releasing more prisoners — despite warnings that prisons would become “hotbeds for coronavirus spread” and “endanger not just people who are inside and people who are working inside but also the entire community that surrounds the prison.”

Kentucky, like most states, continued to imprison people for technical violations of probation and parole, Bertram said. “We actually did prove that mass incarceration probably added at least half a million Covid cases nationwide in the summer of 2020 alone,” she said.

In 2021, Bertram's group gave states letter grades based on their treatment of incarcerated populations during the pandemic. Kentucky, along with many others, received an F.

“Beshear’s commutations of 1,800 incarcerated people is a bright spot in what, otherwise, I would consider to be a complete public health failure when it comes to protecting incarcerated people and the communities that surround prisons,” Bertram said.

Kentucky had the nation’s third highest rate of Covid infections and deaths among prisoners from March 2020 to June 2021, according to the Marshall Project, which collaborated with The Associated Press to keep track. The numbers are an undercount because inconsistent testing caused infections to go undiagnosed, especially early in the pandemic, according to the report.

During those 15 months, Kentucky prisons recorded 7,909 cases — 6,503 cases per 10,000 prisoners, lower than only Michigan and Arkansas — and 48 deaths, or 39 per 10,000, lower than only Nevada and New Mexico.

Eight state prison staff in Kentucky died of Covid-19, the Department of Corrections said earlier this month.

Learning loss

By the start of the 2020-21 academic year, four states had ordered schools to open in person, but in Kentucky most schools continued remote learning. In November, a deadly “third wave” struck and Beshear announced that public and private K-12 schools would close.

Danville Christian Academy and Cameron challenged the school closing order and won before U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove. But the Sixth Circuit U.S Court of Appeals upheld Beshear’s order, saying it treated all schools, religious or otherwise, the same.

The appeals court took note of one of Beshear’s justifications: “Kentucky leads the nation in children living with relatives other than their parents — including grandparents and great-grandparents, who are especially vulnerable” to the virus. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

By early 2021, a year into the pandemic, most Kentucky schools had returned to in-person instruction.

Some research suggests school closures helped keep Covid-19 transmission lower than if the doors had stayed open, but children suffered from the disruption in their education.

Many children suffered learning loss during remote and hybrid classes in 2020 and 2021 across the country, according to a 2022 study at Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research.

In Kentucky, reading and math proficiency dropped during the pandemic when comparing 2018-19 assessments with 2021-22 data.

At the time of that October 2022 report, Education Commissioner Jason Glass said “The Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on our students and our schools as they continue to recover from the interrupted learning that occurred over the past two years.”

Cameron has said that should he be elected governor, he will institute a “catch-up” plan with tutoring to bring kids up to speed.

Looking back at her high-school experience, Pavuluri, now a piublc-policy student at Vanderbilt University, says that despite the disruptions in her education, school closures and other restrictions were worth it.

Because her mother is a geriatrician who works with older adults, she felt more empathy toward people at higher risk. “That was always in my mind and Covid was something I feel like I took pretty seriously,” she said. “I didn’t necessarily have someone very … immunocompromised in my family. (But) I think I really … empathize with the students who do.”

“There was obviously … negatives to the experience,” she added, “but I think just the massive negative would have been to … lose someone.”

In 2021, Harvard Medical School researchers found that while most children who contracted Covid-19 were only mildly symptomatic or had no symptoms at all, they could still carry the virus on to others. 

How did Kentucky compare to other states?

Kentucky is famously one of the sickest states — ranked third most unhealthy by Becker’s Hospital Review in January ahead of only West Virginia and Mississippi.

“Everyone had a reason to expect that we would be absolutely devastated” by Covid, said UofL’s McKinney.

Kentuckians suffer high rates of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. And the state’s population is shifting older. All these factors mean a lot of Kentuckians went into the pandemic with at least one “comorbidity” — a pre-existing condition putting them at higher risk for Covid-19 complications and death.

“Among our neighbor states, we were much more vulnerable than almost all of them,” said McKinney.

And yet CDC mortality data, which only includes 2020 and 2021, shows Kentucky’s death rate was lower than Tennessee’s and West Virginia’s, and higher than those of Indiana, Ohio and Virginia.

McKinney credits measures “implemented by the leadership and state” for saving Kentucky lives.

A study published in April in the international medical journal The Lancet took into account age and health when comparing states. and found that Kentucky’s death rate was lower than the national average.

Kentucky’s unadjusted Covid-19 death rate from January 2020 through July 2022 was 472 deaths for every 100,000 residents, higher than the national average. After adjusting for age and comorbidities, the rate was 341 deaths per 100,000 population, lower than the national rate of 372.

The state with the lowest adjusted death rate was Hawaii (147 per 100,000 residents). The highest was Arizona (581 per 100,000).

In April 2020, professors in the University of Kentucky's Gatton College of Business and Economics released research estimating that the state would have been much worse off without social-distancing measures early in the pandemic.

UK did not make those researchers available to the Lantern for this story. At the time, they estimated Kentucky would have had 45,000 Covid-19 cases by April 25, 2020, had the state not closed communal businesses like gyms and restaurants. Instead, the state had around 4,000.

The researchers also estimated that, a month into the pandemic, those actions saved about 2,000 lives.

A more comprehensive study by The Royal Society in London examined the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions like social distancing and mask wearing during across the globe.

The August 2023 report found that social strategies like mask wearing and physical distancing helped reduce virus spread. However, scientists found that this was most true when powerful variants like Delta and Omicron, which were particularly good at evading protective barriers, weren’t spreading.

McKinney asked, “Could they have … relaxed restrictions more rapidly? Could they have … let us get to a normal life faster? That’s a tough call. You have to play it a little bit by ear. And, again, you’re trying to probably err on the side of protection of human life.”

He added, “Everything’s clearer in hindsight. . . . I think that the leadership of both the commissioner of public health and the governor, who worked closely together in implementing policy, the primary concern was preservation of lives.

“Freedom of the population is very important. But if you’re dead, you can’t be free. So if you preserve life first, and then . . . worry about how tight the controls have to be later. I think that was the general plan: to be as tight as possible to hopefully stop the progress of the virus.” 

Lessons for the future

Kentucky’s response to Covid-19 wasn’t perfect, experts say, and there is much the state can learn from it for the future.

For example, Kentucky needs more vigorous respiratory-virus surveillance, automated data reporting and well-maintained stockpiles of personal protective equipment.

The ability to produce vaccines quickly will ease government reliance on social mitigation measures as well, McKinney said.

Kentucky — and the nation — will need to guard against complacency, McKinney said. Although “hopefully” there won’t be another pandemic in the near future, “there’s no guarantee.”

Kentucky also must rebuild its health-care workforce. The pandemic “taxed” health care workers “beyond belief,” said Veno, with LeadingAge. And the staffing challenges this caused continue.

Pavuluri said leaders must keep in mind that students need social connections, mentorship and relationships. Many lacked that during NTI learning and will need it for the next public health crisis, she said.

And, even though the emergency years of the Covid-19 have ended, “staffing remains a huge problem,” said Campbell, with the state hospital association.

“We are incredibly concerned as hospitals and the hospital association about trying to increase the pipeline and retain the staff that we have,” she said.

Before the pandemic hit, she said, there was already a concerning trajectory of an aging nursing workforce. “Then we had Covid, which caused burnout.”

Looking to the future, climate change is a concern.

“Warming of the climate will affect … a lot of disease transmission,” McKinney said. “If winter weather that wipes out the mosquito population every year did not do so, and they survived and thrived and carried something like malaria … throughout that time, it would be … a big concern, obviously, for the nation.”

Covid-19 is shifting more into an annual flu-like nuisance, public health experts have said. People will still get sick, but the science is there to manage large waves.

For now, many facilities are still using universal precautions–like wearing personal protective equipment–during outbreaks. They also use screening tools to keep the spread low.

“Make no mistake about it,” said Veno, of LeadingAge. “We’re still dealing with Covid, and we’re going to be dealing with Covid for quite some time.”

Jamie Lucke and McKenna Horsley contributed to this story.

Suit claims Morehead hospital refused to grant all requests from workers for religious exemptions from Covid-19 vaccine mandate

St. Claire Medical Center (Photo from The Daily Yonder)

A woman who says she was fired by St. Claire Medical Center for not getting a Covid-19 vaccine is suing the hospital in federal court, alleging that the Morehead hospital denied the religious exemption she claimed, and those of all other employees who claimed such an exemption.

Teffany Smith of Olive Hill filed the lawsuit in federal court, but cited the state law banning religious discrimination by employers. Smith, who was a lab assistant, says she was fired Sept. 15, 2021, the day that each hospital employee was required to be vaccinated.

The suit says Smith submitted an exemption citing several passages of Scripture and a letter from a pastor, Joyce Stapleton of New Life Victory Church in Olive Hill, who said the vaccine “violates laws put forth within us by a higher power at the time of conception. . . . We believe in healing and that is what our God provides.” The church website lists different pastors.

Smith also "alleges the hospital did not engage in a good-faith dialogue and consideration of proposed accommodations for not receiving the vaccine," Taylor Six of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. "St. Claire Healthcare officials did not respond to request for comment."

Beshear says current state of Ky. law on abortion is 'the most extremist in the nation' because of no rape or incest exceptions

Beshear talks about abortion. (Screenshot from Facebook)

By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News

The current state of Kentucky's law on abortion is "the most extremist in the nation" because it is bans almost all abortions with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest, Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday.

At his regular weekly press conference, Beshear was asked for his reaction to the defeat Tuesday in Kansas of a constitutional amendment similar to one on the Nov. 8 ballot in Kentucky, which would negate a preliminary court ruling that two state abortion laws probably violate the state constitution's privacy and religious-freedom provisions.

The temporary injunction, issued by Jefferson Circuit Judge Mitch Perry in a lawsuit by the state's two abortion clinics, has been blocked by state Court of Appeals Judge Larry Thompson of Pikeville pending the court's consideration of an appeal and a request to toss the case to the state Supreme Court.

That makes abortion illegal in Kentucky, except to save the woman's life or prevent permanent damage to a life-sustaining organ, under a "trigger law" the General Assembly wrote to take effect if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision for abortion rights, which it did on June 24. 

"I believe that most Kentuckians view the current state of reproductive health in Kentucky as extremist," Beshear said. "I believe people should go thinking about that constitutional amendment with regards to the trigger law. . . . If that constitutional amendment passes, it will make the trigger constitutional, if it is not" under Perry's ruling.

"The trigger law is, I think, the most extremist in the nation," Beshear said. "It means that rape victims have no options. It means that victims of incest have no options. . . . They deserve options. I think the vast majority of Kentuckians agree the current state that we're under right now is extremist, and I don't think most people out there like extremism."

Beshear generally favors abortion rights, but not late-term abortions. He did not give a reaction to the Kansas referendum, in which voters defeated by 3 to 2 a constitutional amendment that would have negated a Kansas Supreme Court decision that said the state constitution creates a right to abortion.

The amendment on Kentucky's ballot would likewise negate Perry's ruling or any appellate-court ruling upholding it.

Beshear also did not respond to a question about The New York Times' state-by-state estimates of the likely outcome in similar referenda in each state, which predicted that the proposed amendment would be defeated, by a vote of 53 to 47 percent. Here's an adapted version of the Times map with its estimates; for a larger version, click on it.

Judge on state Court of Appeals issues temporary order making almost all abortions in Kentucky illegal again

A judge on the Kentucky Court of Appeals has issued an order that, in effect, at least temporarily bans abortions in Kentucky unless needed to save the woman's life or prevent permanent damage to a life-sustaining organ.

Judge Larry Thompson

Judge Larry Thompson of Pikeville granted Attorney General Daniel Cameron's request that he be allowed to enforce the "trigger law" the legislature passed to ban almost all abortions if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which it did June 24, and another law banning abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy.

Thompson's order "temporarily countermands an order from Jefferson Circuit Judge Mitch Perry to suspend enforcement of the laws while a legal challenge is pending," explains Deborah Yetter of The Courier Journal. "Thompson's order will remain in place while the appeals court appoints a three-judge panel to consider Cameron's appeal and other matters, including his request that the case be transferred directly to the state Supreme Court for swifter resolution."

Perry's ruling found that the two laws violate the rights to privacy, self-determination and religious freedom established by the state constitution and court decisions based on it.

Thompson said in his order that abortions performed while a legal challenge is pending "cannot be undone."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, which represents Louisville abortion clinic EMW Women's Surgical Center, said it would appeal Thompson's ruling to the state Supreme Court.

"Cameron had asked the appeals court for an emergency decision to immediately lift the injunction and also transfer his appeal of Perry's decision directly to the state Supreme Court for faster resolution of his case seeking to enforce the two abortion laws," Yetter notes. "Neither law contains exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. . . . Physicians who violate the laws could be charged with a felony and subject to up to five years in prison."

Voters could decide the issue Nov. 8, when they consider a proposed constitutional amendment that would say the state constitution does not create a right to abortion or government funding of it.

Pandemic state of emergency would end March 7 under a resolution the state Senate sent to the House on a party-line vote

Sen. Donald Douglas (Legislative photo) 

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

The Senate has sent the House a resolution to end the Covid-19 state of emergency in Kentucky on March 7.

Senate Joint Resolution 150, sponsored by Republican Sen. Donald Douglas of Nicholasville, would end the state of emergency that Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear declared on March 6, 2020. In January, the legislature set it to expire on April 15. 

The resolution would end "all subsequent executive orders, emergency administrative regulations, suspensions of statutes, and other directives which rely upon the declaration of emergency."  

And it says the governor "shall not" declare a new Covid-19 state of emergency "based upon the same or substantially similar facts and circumstances as the original declaration" without the prior approval of the General Assembly. 

The resolution passed the Senate Thursday, Feb. 24. on a party-line vote of 28-8. Including Douglas, the resolution has 18 sponsors. 

While presenting the bill on the Senate floor, Daniels acknowledged that when the virus was first announced, there were many unknowns that drove decision-making, but he said it quickly turned political. 

"Instead of proceeding down a purely medical path, it seems that politics took a major role and  sometimes even the lead," said Douglas, a physician. "The emergency seemed to be more about emotion and feeling and a lot less about objectivity and facts."  

He said the focus has been on cases and deaths, without an understanding that "many more people recovered without issue," causing our citizens to be "terrified." As of Feb. 25, there have been 1.3 million Covid-19 cases in Kentucky and 13,758 deaths attributed to it, most in people over 60. However, as many as a third of people with Covid-19 have reported lingering effects.

Douglas noted that the state of emergency led to cancellation of elective medical procedures, business shutdowns, loss of jobs, mask mandates and travel restrictions, and said "the Kentucky State Police were directed to target church attendees."

When Douglas presented the bill in committee, he said Beshear ordered police "to pull the attendees of the church out of the church.” That is not true. Beshear ordered police to go to parking lots of churches that held in-person services on Easter 2020 and place notice on cars saying that attendees were in violation of his order against mass gatherings and should quarantine themselves for 14 days.

Douglass also cited a Johns Hopkins University meta-analysis of 24 studies that looked at the effects of lockdowns on Covid-19 deaths. The researchers found lockdowns in the U.S. and Europe reduced Covid-19 mortality by an average of 0.2 percent; that shelter-in-place orders reduced mortality by 2.9%; and that there was no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects from non-pharmaceutical interventions. 

The study concluded, "While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public-health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument."

Douglas said, "It is time to move to normalcy." He said the March 7 date would give Beshear time to file any administrative regulations that are needed and ensure that the lawmakers are still in session when the emergency ends.

He added that it is not his intent to decrease or interfere with any federal funding, but Sen. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, said it remains unknown if the resolution would affect federal funding such as the additional nutrition benefits that have been made available to children and families.

Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, also spoke against the resolution, saying it is premature because the percentage of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus remains too high and only 60% of eligible Kentuckians have received even a single dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.

When Berg spoke, the positive-test rate was around 10%, after being above 30% for much of January. Early in the pandemic, public-health officials said caution is required when the rate is above 5%. 

Vaccination rates are also slowing. Over the last seven days, the average number of Covid-19 vaccinations in Kentucky was 2,508 per day, the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began gathering reliable data in January 2020. Most of the shots were boosters. State and CDC data show that 64% of the total population have received at least one dose of a vaccine, 56% are fully vaccinated and 43% of the eligible population is boosted.

Sen. David Yates, D-Louisville, asked his colleagues, “Why are we doing it? This doesn’t change anything. . . . I actually cannot wait until I can join in support of it, but what is the rush? I vote no.”

Gov. Andy Beshear said on Feb. 21, "We don't have any state restrictions left . . . and we haven't in a long time."

Douglas, who won a special election in November, is running in the May 17 primary election against Andrew Cooperrider of Lexington, who flouted Beshear's restrictions and led protests against them.

Baptist seminary president's guidance to Christians on vaccines still drawing high readership, eight months after publication

When the first coronavirus vaccine was released in December, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler published an article in Kentucky Today, an online news service of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, giving Christians the green light for vaccination. Almost eight months later, as vaccinations in Kentucky fall short of public-health goals due to resistance, his article is still one of the most-read on the KT website.

Albert Mohler

Mohler begins by comparing development of the vaccines to the moon landing, then offers seven points for Christians to consider as they decide whether to get vaccinated or not.

First, he rejects the line of thinking that if God wants someone to have the virus, they will get it no matter what they do. "That kind of logic, if pressed to its logical conclusion, however, is untenable—we wouldn’t treat any sickness, cancer, or injury," Mohler writes. "Medical treatment is an extension of God’s common grace and Christians have always understood this. That is why, throughout history, where you found Christians, you found hospitals and the church treating the sick."

Then Mohler tackles one of the obstacles most discussed among evangelicals, that a vaccine was developed with tissue from an aborted fetus. "There was a use of fetal cell lines . . . derived from an abortion in the Netherlands in the 1960s," he writes. "How then ought Christians think about all of this? First of all, we must condemn in the strongest of terms the use of any tissues from aborted human babies. That is a nonnegotiable issue for Christians as we consider medical advances and treatments. There are, however, complexities involved as Christians contemplate these incredibly serious moral questions. Specifically, with the issue of the Covid-19 vaccine, Christians need to understand that no step in producing these vaccines had any direct involvement in an abortion of a single child. There is also the issue of proximity. The further you go in history, the harder it is to keep a clear line of culpability in morally significant events. That said, the good news about the Covid-19 vaccines is that even as these cells were used to create the basic shape of the vaccine, no fetal tissue was used."

Mohler continues, "A horrifying wrong was done—but that does not mean that good cannot come from that harm, even as it is a good tainted by the realities of a sinful world. This idea is expressed, for Christians, as the doctrine of double effect. Some actions have more than one effect. For Christians, the primary intention must aim at virtue and good. The intention behind an act must never seek harm or evil or any moral reality and outcome against God’s will. We must never be complicit in intending sin, and certainly this applies to every dimension of abortion. But the Christian also acknowledges a potential double effect, for every moral act can lead to consequences not intended, but unavoidable. If the abortion of even a single human baby was required for this vaccine, or if abortion-derived materials were included in the vaccine, Christians would be rightly outraged. This is not the case. The vaccine can be taken by pro-life Christians with legitimacy."

Mohler then endorses the vaccines' efficacy and safety, says it was appropriate for those at greater risk to have the first access to them, and says it is doubtful that they will be made mandatory; but he objects to any law or regulation that would allow a minor to be vaccinated without parental knowledge.

His other major point addresses what he calls "the common good—the issue of love of neighbor," a theme that Gov. Andy Beshear, an active member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has frequently sounded, though not always in a religious context, to advocate vaccination.

"There are third parties—people who cannot take the vaccine or do not yet have access to it—that could still be infected by those who refuse to take the vaccine," Mohler notes. "The common-good argument is extremely powerful in the Christian tradition. Indeed, it is the second greatest commandment listed by Jesus Christ: to love our neighbors as ourselves. The general principle of the common good comes down to benevolence, love, care for others, laying down personal priorities for the service of others. Christians thinking about the issue of the vaccine must weigh this key biblical principle as part of their thinking."

Legislature overrides vetoes of three bills limiting governor's emergency powers; Beshear files lawsuit to nullify those new laws

The Kentucky House of Representatives (Courier Journal photo)

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

The legislature's Republican supermajority flexed its muscle Tuesday and overrode Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear's vetoes of six bills, three of them designed to limit the emergency powers that he says he needs to thwart the coronavirus pandemic.

Beshear immediately filed a lawsuit in Franklin Circuit Court to nullify the three bills, saying in a news release that he did so to stop legislators from stripping him of his ability "to implement lifesaving public health measures during a pandemic that has killed more than 3,700 Kentuckians." 

“Today, the General Assembly attempted to surrender to Covid-19 and accept the casualties. As your governor, I cannot let this happen,” Beshear said. “I have filed this action to continue to fight for the protection of all Kentuckians.”

Republican lawmakers are looking to limit governor's powers at a time when the state is recovering from its third escalation of virus cases while suffering more deaths; working to ramp up vaccinations; and warning that new variants of the virus could cause huge spikes in cases by March. 

Beshear announced 2,443 new cases Tuesday, lowering the seven-day average to 2,352. This is the fifth straight day the share of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus in the past seven days is below 9 percent, at 8.83%. But Covid-19 deaths remain high, from the holiday-driven escalation of cases; 32 more brought the 14-day average to a near high, 44.14 per day.

Again, Beshear argued that Kentucky has fared better than other states under his orders, seeing fewer cases and significantly fewer deaths. 

He noted Kentucky's Covid-19 death rate by population is less than two-thirds that of Tennessee, who has no mask mandate, and said: “The lesson is clear: When a governor takes action, his or her state experiences fewer deaths. When a governor does not, the results are tragic.”

With very little debate and almost entirely along party lines, all three vetoed bills were repassed by both chambers. 

House Bill 1 allows businesses, schools, nonprofits and churches to stay open during the pandemic as long as they have a plan in place that meets the requirements of the least restrictive plan set forth by either the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the state administration. It repassed the House 72-22 and the Senate 29-8. 

In the House, the only speaker for the bill was Rep. Richard White, R-Morehead, who said, "I feel like us legislators are representing our constituents all across the parts of the state, and I think we should have a little voice or input in some things that's being said down here in the state."

Rep. Rachel Roberts, D-Newport, a small-business owner, said CDC guidelines are ever-changing and are meant to be used as guidelines, not as mandates. "I find this bill to be confusing," she said. "I find it to be reckless, and I think this bill will lead to more loss of life."

Rep. Buddy Wheatley, D-Covington, said of Beshear, "Let's not tie his hands. Let's let him continue this job. Let's let him be the governor and not diminish his powers like this." 

Senate Bill 1 limits to 30 days Beshear's executive orders that restrict the function of schools, businesses or nonprofits, unless they are extended by the General Assembly. It also applies to executive orders that regulate political, religious and social gatherings or impose mandatory quarantines or isolation requirements. It repassed the Senate 29-8 and the House 69-20. 

Senate Minority Leader Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, said the bill does nothing to help the people of Kentucky, which is what they were elected to do. 

"It handcuffs every future executive branch official, every future governor and how they organize what they do and how they respond to crisis when we're not here," he said. "This is a part-time legislature, it is a full-time executive. We should be shaping policies that help people now into the future. I don't think this bill does that and that's why I vote no." 

Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, said he voted yes "on behalf of the tens of thousands of Kentuckians who are still waiting to get an [un]employment check; for the hundreds of small business owners who've given up their life savings, given up their life's work; the thousands of  children who have been denied a quality education. It's time to change." 

Sen. Matt Castlen, R-Owensboro, the primary sponsor of SB1, said, "To our small-business owners, our restaurants, our families at home teaching their children right now, balancing life and a job and all the other things, the past 333 days have been tough on this state. And we gladly look forward to having a seat at the table representing all corners of Kentucky."

In the House, Rep. McKenzie Cantrell, D-Louisville, asked if legislators now planned to do away with the emergency orders, noting that some of them may be tied to much-needed federal monies. "What is next?" she asked. "What is the plan?" 

The bill also strips the ability of the governor and the secretary of state to change the manner of holding an election during an emergency without approval of the legislature. 

The third pandemic-related bill is SB 2, which allows legislative committees to strike down a governor's emergency regulations. It also requires such regulations to include justification or evidence; limits the order to 30 days if it affects education, businesses, nonprofits, local governments or places of worship; and establishes rules to allow for expedited public hearings on the order.  It repassed the Senate 31-6  and the House 69-20. 

Sen. Stephen West, R-Paris, the primary sponsor, stressed that this bill allows the public to be able to comment on emergency orders, like the ones that he said stripped people of their jobs, didn't allow landlords to collect rent and restricted in-person worship. 

All three bills have an emergency clause that will make them effective immediately upon the secretary of state's signature.

Beshear announced Monday that leaders of the two chambers had just told him that they would not negotiate the issue until the override votes were taken.

House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, told the Courier Journal that he wished the issue wasn't going to be litigated, but said Beshear "has shown no willingness to work with us and have these discussions so far, so we fully expected him to litigate this to keep his unilateral power intact."

As the Senate adjourned, Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, mimicking the promise made by the governor on Monday at his Covid-briefing, said, "I'll see you in court."

Beshear's argument against HB 1 says it is "void for vagueness and places absolute and arbitrary power in the federal government," and cites a letter from the CDC director saying the guidelines "should not be interpreted as regulation."

His argument against SB 1 repeatedly notes that Kentucky has a part-time legislature, notes that it would force a governor to call the legislature into special session to extend an order beyond 30 days and claims the measure "takes an executive power and function that properly belongs to the governor as the commander in chief and gives it to the legislative branch." It says SB 1 also violates the constitution by putting the governor "under the supervision and control of an inferior officer, the attorney general, by requiring the governor to obtain the inferior officer’s written approval before suspending a statute by executive order." Republican Daniel Cameron is attorney general.

The governor's argument against SB 2 says it violates the state constitution's separation of powers "by invading the executive power and function of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services – an executive-branch cabinet – to act to address and protect Kentuckians from infectious or contagious diseases . . . " He also argues that all the bills violate the constitution's ban on special legislation and don't meet its requirement to state at length the reasons for their emergency clauses.

In other coronavirus news Tuesday: 

• Today's fatalities were a Bourbon County man, 86; a Clay County woman, 51; a Crittenden County man, 97; two Daviess County women, 60 and 88; two Daviess County men, 72 and 77; a Fayette County woman, 81; two Fayette County men, 60 and 87; a Grayson County man, 62; a Hardin County woman, 76; three Hardin County men, 59, 67 and 73; a Henderson County man, 74; two Hopkins County women, 68 and 83; four Jefferson County women, 55, 70, 82 and 86; four Jefferson County men, 63, 63, 69 and 98; a Johnson County man, 79; a Kenton County woman, 78; a LaRue County woman, 69; a Marion County man, 56; an Ohio County woman, 71; and a Pulaski County woman, 90.
• Counties with 10 or more new cases were Jefferson, 349; Boone, 144; Fayette, 140; Kenton, 132; Madison, 81; Campbell, 78; Laurel and Warren, 77; Daviess, 75; Pike, 49; Knox, 47; McCracken, 45; Hopkins and Whitley, 40; Hardin, 39; Nelson and Pulaski, 37; Jessamine, 29; Franklin and Mercer, 27; Anderson, Christian and Taylor, 26; Barren, 25; Allen, Grant and Scott, 23; Clark and Montgomery, 22; Johnson, 21; Bullitt and Harlan, 19; Clay and Ohio, 18; McCreary and Pendleton, 17; Boyd, Henderson, Logan and Monroe, 16; Oldham, 15; Grayson and Russell, 14; Letcher, 13; Calloway and Wayne, 12; Boyle, Edmonson, Floyd, Perry and Woodford, 11; Bourbon, Butler, Martin and Rowan, 10.
• Hospital numbers remained stable, with 1,335 Covid-19 patients, 373 of them in intensive care and 172 of those on ventilators.
• Intensive-care beds are at least 80% full in three hospital-readiness regions: Barren River, 82.41%; the easternmost region, 85.29%; and Lake Cumberland, 97.78%. 
• The Biden administration is increasing Kentucky's vaccine supply by an additional 5%, increasing the state's supply by 22% the week of Feb. 8, compared with the week of Jan. 25, Beshear's news release said.

Governor finalizes school reopening rules, makes them only advisory for private schools; all pandemic metrics down for day

State Dept. for Public Health map, relabeled by Ky. Health News; to enlarge, click on it.

By Al Cross

Kentucky Health News

As the novel coronavirus ebbed slightly in Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear finalized rules for reopening schools, and made them only advisory for private schools, precluding a renewed battle in federal courts.

In a press release, Beshear announced 3,179 new cases of the virus, 14 percent less than the previous Friday. The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases is 2,884, which is 2.5% below Thursday's figure. Hospitalization figures, which are steadier, were lower on all fronts: 1,712 Covid-19 patients in Kentucky hospitals, 410 of them in intensive care and 227 of those on ventilators.

The share of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus in the past seven days also remained steady, at 8.59%. 

Beshear announced 28 additional deaths, well over the average of 21 for the last month but well below the record 54 he announced Thursday.

The governor issued an executive order finalizing his plan for school reopenings in the new year, which he outlined Monday. The order begins by saying it applies to all K-12 public schools but "It is also recommended that all private schools follow these provisions."

Beshear's Nov. 18 order banning in-person instruction until Jan. 4 applied to all schools, prompting a lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which sat on the case long enough to say Thursday that it was largely moot because the holiday break was arriving.

The latest order allows schools in red zones -- counties averaging at least 25 new cases of the virus per 100,000 population -- to open Jan. 4 if they follow new safety guidelines and have "meaningful virtual options for all students" but recommends that they not open until Jan. 11.

Beshear said Monday that he recommends waiting another week because the virus has a 14-day incubation period, and public-health officials fear increased spread of the virus during Christmas holidays.

The plan adjusts the recommendations for counties in red and orange zones, primarily by asking schools in those counties to implement "more aggressive" hybrid learning to reduce the number of people in school buildings. Schools must accommodate employees who fall into a high-risk category with a virtual option.

Friday, Beshear reminded Kentuckians to follow new holiday guidance that the health department issued Thursday.

“Christmas is probably my favorite day of the year, and I know we all want to celebrate the way we usually do, but this year we need to do things differently,” he said. “With vaccines arriving this week, we can see the bright light at the end of the tunnel. Now we just need everyone to keep doing their part to protect one another.”

In other coronavirus news Friday:

• The 28 latest Covid-19 fatalities were a 64-year-old woman from Boyd County; two Christian County men, 67 and 71; a Clark County man, 75; a woman, 92, and a man, 84, from Fayette County; a Graves County woman, 93; a Greenup County woman, 71; a Hardin County man, 70; two Hopkins County men, 54 and 86; a woman, 95, and five men, 58, 74, 77, 77 and 79, from Jefferson County; a Johnson County woman, 57;  a Kenton County woman, 84; a LaRue County woman, 93; a Lee County woman, 75; a Marshall County man, 90; a Mason County man, 66; a woman, 83, and a man, 59, from McCracken County; a Pike County man, 74; a Taylor County woman, 95; and a Union County woman, 62.
  
• Counties with more than 10 new cases were: Jefferson, 434; Fayette, 189; Pulaski, 150; Kenton, 149; Warren, 104; Boone, 85; Daviess, 78; Oldham, 77; Wayne, 73; Pike, 66; Whitley, 61; Laurel, 49; Hardin, 47; Henderson, 46; Campbell, 45; Greenup, 44; Taylor, 43; Bullitt, 41; Bath, Hopkins McCreary and Russell, 37; Franklin, 34; Bourbon and Madison, 33; Clark and Clay, 32; Boyd and Grant, 30; Boyle and Lincoln, 29; Christian, McCracken and Marshall, 28; Knox, 27; Carter, Clinton, Floyd and Letcher, 26; Mercer, 25; Hart and Jessamine, 23; Nelson and Scott, 22; Mason, 21; Bell, Carroll and Green, 20; Logan, 19; Adair, Marion, Montgomery and Simpson, 18; Muhlenberg, 17; Shelby, 16; Perry, 15; Graves, Grayson, Henry and Ohio, 14; Casey and Lewis, 13; Anderson, Barren, Butler, Powell and Union, 12; Garrard, Meade and Robertson, 11.
• Beshear issued a reminder that Friday is the deadline to apply for the $40 million Team Kentucky Food and Beverage Relief Fund. Check eligibility and apply here.

Beshear announces most Covid-19 deaths yet in one day, 54; hospitalizations and ventilator use are also at all-time highs

White House Coronavirus Task Force table; for a larger version, click on it.

By Melissa Patrick

Kentucky Health News

The state announced more deaths, by far, from Covid-19 on Thursday than any day in the pandemic: 54. The previous record of 37 was set Dec. 2. 

“Remember, that’s a reflection of where this virus was about three weeks ago and where it was trending, because increase in deaths follow increase in cases,” Gov. Andy Beshear said, adding that the list of fatalities was hard to read, but not as what 54 families are going through.

“I hope we don’t have another day where we have 54 deaths. . . . These are 54 families that need our help and our compassion and our green lights, which is the color of compassion and renewal,” Beshear said. “They also need us to do better, to follow the rules and restrictions.”

Kentucky's hospitalizations and ventilator cases also hit record highs, with 1,817 people hospitalized with Covid-19, 431 of them in intensive care and 254 of those on ventilators. 

The good news is that the number of new cases of the novel coronavirus continues to flatten, and the percentage of Kentuckians testing positive for the virus moved down slightly, to 8.45%, continuing a two-week trend. 

Beshear reported 3,349 new cases of the virus Thursday, saying that's still too high, but lower than last Thursday. It brought the state's seven-day rolling average down to 2,957, the first time it's been below 3,000 in two weeks.

The state's Covid-19 death toll is now 2,316. As usual, Beshear named the ages and county for each of the 54 deaths, including six in Madison County and two in Robertson, the state's least populous county, at about 2,000. 

Supreme Court: In the middle of his briefing, Beshear learned that the U.S. Supreme Court had declined to exempt religious schools from his ban on in-person schooling, which runs until Jan. 4 in most counties, mainly on grounds that it will not be renewed. 

The ban was one of several actions the governor took Nov. 18 to stop the rampant spread of the coronavirus. Most were lifted on Monday. 

"We see with that and other steps, it . . . stopped an exponential growth that was threatening our hospital capacity," Beshear said.

Vaccines: Beshear announced that more vaccine shipments from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna are expected in Kentucky over the next two weeks, noting that the next Pfizer shipment of 27,300 doses is lower than expected -- about 11,000 under the number sent in the first shipment. The Moderna allocation is expected to be 110,500 doses. 

Moderna's vaccine moved one more step closer to federal approval. The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, an independent panel, voted 20-0 with one abstention to recommend the Moderna vaccine for adults, clearing the path for authorization by the Food and Drug Administration. 

Beshear said the next round of vaccines and those coming in January are also slated for frontline health-care workers and long-term-care employees and residents. He said so far, at least 1,454 of the first shipment of doses had been administered.

Health Commissioner Steven Stack, asked about the discovery that many vials of the Pfizer vaccine have six doses, not the expected five, said that if pharmacists can get six full doses from a vial, they should administer them.

Beshear and Stack both asked for patience as vaccines are rolled out. "Let's make sure we focus on us and we, not I and me," said Stack. "We are all in this together."

Beshear said a multi-media campaign to help Kentuckians learn about the vaccines began Thursday. The state is also offering a hotline to address people's general questions about vaccines. Stack, a physician, asked Kentuckians to not call the hotline to try to schedule appointments or to advocate for who they think should get the vaccine next. "These are things that they are not in a position to answer," he said.

Holiday guidance: Stack issued formal guidance for the upcoming holidays, including limiting social gatherings to no more than eight people from two households, always wearing a mask and social distancing; avoiding all large gatherings, especially if they are indoors; to not host or attend large parades or events; and to avoid all leisure travel until further notice.

“If you get together with people with whom you do not live, you should assume someone in that group is infected. And if you eat and drink and take your masks off, you should assume you are at high risk for getting infected,” said Stack. “The disease is that widespread at this time.”

Federal update: This week's report from the White House Coronavirus Task Force stressed the virus's dangers to people over 65 or those with significant health conditions, urging them to not enter any public spaces where people are unmasked and to have groceries and medications delivered.

And it says people under 40 who choose to gather outside their immediate household, which makes them dangerous to others, need to assume they are infected, even if they don't have symptoms. 

The report advises those 65 and older with symptoms to get tested immediately because "the majority of therapeutics work best early." It also reminds seniors that those over 70 who get infected are at greater risk, noting that 20% of this group are hospitalized and nearly 10% die. 

The report said the state ranks 22nd for new cases and test positivity Dec. 5-11, but Beshear said the report recognizes that Kentucky's cases are plateauing, its test positivity is decreasing and its hospitals are managing. "That means we are doing better while the rest of the nation is doing worse," he said. 

The report says 78% of Kentucky counties have high levels of community transmission and 97% have either a high or a moderate level of transmission. Kentucky had 513 new cases per 100,000 people Dec. 5-11. The national average was 451 per 100,000.

The report puts 94 of the state's 120 counties in the White House red zone, an increase of 10 from the previous report; the orange zone decreased by six, to 15; and the yellow zone dropped by four, to seven. 

In other Covid-19 news Thursday: 

• Today's fatalities were two Bullitt County men, 67 and 72; a Calloway County woman, 94; an Carroll County woman, 83; a Casey County man, 47; a woman, 81, and a man, 69, from Christian County; a woman, 97, and a man, 82, from Clinton County; a Daviess County man, 76; a Fayette County woman, 92; a Graves County woman, 88; two Grayson County women, 63 and 68; a Hardin County woman, 85; a Henderson County man, 94; a woman, 65, and two men, 64 and 98, from Hopkins County; two women, 82 and 97, and two men, 47 and 87, from Jefferson County; a woman, 85, and a man, 55, from Jessamine County; a Johnson County man, 77; a Kenton County man, 66; a woman, 75, and a man, 79, from Knott County; a Larue County man, 75; an Logan County woman, 88; four women, 76, 85, 90 and 99, and two men, ages 77 and 89, from Madison County; two Mason County men, 83 and 87; a McLean County woman, 88; a Monroe County man, 86; a woman, 81, and a man, 77, from Muhlenberg County; a woman, 61, and a man, 52, from Nelson County; three Oldham County men, 75, 86 and 95; two Robertson County men, 70 and 87; a Russell County man, 63; a Spencer County woman, 92; a Union County woman, 73; and a Washington County woman, 58.
• Counties with 10 or more cases were Jefferson, 475; Kenton, 178; Boone, 171; Fayette, 126; Campbell, 119; Pulaski, 106; Hardin, 103; Daviess, 94; Madison, 86; Warren, 80; Wayne,70; Laurel, McCracken and Shelby, 57; Pike, 56; Oldham, 48; McCreary, 44; Russell, 38; Taylor, 37; Jessamine and Perry, 34; Bell, 33; Christian, Letcher and Nelson, 32; Bullitt and Lincoln, 31; Anderson, 30; Allen, Graves, Henderson, Marion, Marshall and Rowan, 28; Mercer, 27; Boyle, 26; Clinton, Grant and Montgomery, 24; Logan and Ohio, 23; Floyd, 22; Adair, Scott and Spencer, 21; Calloway, Fleming and Mason, 20; Boyd, Carter, Casey and Trigg, 19; Franklin, Meade and Muhlenberg, 18; Woodford, 17; Martin and Whitley, 16; Knox, 15; Clark, Garrard and Hopkins, 14; Barren, Harlan, Simpson and Washington, 13; Clay, Lawrence and Pendleton, 12; Knott, 11; and Carroll and Monroe, 10.
• In long-term care, 194 additional residents and 126 additional staff tested positive for the virus, with 35 more deaths attributed to the disease. There are 2,590 active resident cases and 1,239 active staff cases, and 1,590 residents and eight staff have died from the virus. 
• The daily report on the kycovid19.ky.gov website has been updated with a new format and new information.

U.S. Supreme Court, 7-2, allows Beshear's ban on in-person schooling to apply to religious schools, at least for the time being

Danville Christian Academy was the lead plaintiff.

By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Thursday to reinstate a Kentucky federal judge's order exempting religious schools from Gov. Andy Beshear's ban on in-person teaching, mainly on grounds that the case was largely moot.

In an unsigned 7-2 decision, the court said, "The governor’s school-closing order effectively expires this week or shortly thereafter, and there is no indication that it will be renewed." If it is, the court said, Danville Christian Academy and Attorney General Daniel Cameron can seek another injunction.

The school and Cameron had won an injunction Nov. 25 from U.S. District Judge Greg Van Tatenhove of Lexington, but on Nov, 29 a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously stayed the order, accepting Beshear's argument that it treated public and religious school alike.

Cameron and the school argued that other Beshear orders, allowing such businesses as theaters, bowling alleys and gaming halls, treated religious schools unfairly. They went to the high court Dec. 1, seeking a reversal from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles such emergency appeals, called applications, from the Sixth Circuit (Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan).

The last filing in then case was Dec. 8. Kavanaugh had the option of ruling or referring it to the full court. Nothing was heard from the court until late Thursday afternoon, when it issued a 325-word opinion saying, in effect, that time had largely run out. It also said Cameron and the school "did not squarely raise" at the appeals court an additional argument that they made to Kavanaugh. 

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito

Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented. Alito, in a 281-word opinion, said he understood the timing issue, but "It is unfair to deny relief on this ground since this timing is in no way the applicants’ fault."

Gorsuch, in an 1,117-word dissent, said the majority "says we should let this one go because this case is old news; winter break is coming soon, and the governor’s decrees will expire in a few weeks, on Jan. 4." He noted that they "remain in force, the dispute over them remains live, and the decision allowing them to stand is flawed. Nothing prevents us from saying so; no one attempts to suggest this case is moot; and the applicants are entitled to a fair assessment of their rights under accurate legal rules."

Gorsuch also said Beshear's orders on schools and businesses should have been considered together. Citing case law, he said "Whether discrimination is spread across two orders or embodied in one makes no difference; the Constitution cannot be evaded merely by multiplying the decrees."