We are posting the updates from Governor Beshear as a service to our readers, along with the full video of the press conference. The bullets come from the KY Health News site, and the video is straight from Facebook. The summary includes both points from the Beshear press conference and news items related to those bullets.
Summary Bullets from KY Health News
Friday 4/3 update (original post)
Gov. Andy Beshear put the need for social distancing to fight COVID-19 in stark terms Friday, displaying a chart that said poor compliance with his orders could cost 11,000 Kentuckians their lives. The chart resembled others he has shown, but was the first specific to Kentucky, and he said, “As the days go by I’m going to show you other projections. … Your choices could save 11,000 people.”
One line on previous charts, but not on Beshear’s, is a horizontal marker showing the capacity limits of the health-care system. His orders are designed to flatten the bell-shaped curve that pandemics follow, so the number of cases doesn’t exceed the system’s capacity. But that also means the restrictions that began in mid-March could last longer, and his projection of 2,000 deaths with strict compliance was for three months.
“If we’re going through May, it’s working,” he said at his daily press conference. “If we have really great success we may be at it a little bit longer.” He said that as the curve subsides, restrictions could be relaxed gradually. At another point, he said, “We know we’re gonna be at this for weeks or months.”
Beshear did not say how his numbers were calculated. The latest projection for Kentucky from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington says the state’s most likely peak for deaths and hospital-bed needs is May 17, with a curve that largely subsides by late June. Its likeliest number of deaths is 821, but like all projections it suffers from limited data; it says the possible number of deaths on the peak day ranges from 1 to 37.
Health Commissioner Steven Stack said on KET‘s “Coronavirus Update” Friday night that the IHME projections “seem to me to be more optimistic than a number of other sources that are publicly available.”
Beshear reported six more deaths Friday, for a total of 37, and 90 more confirmed cases, for a total of 831. “We are not escalating every day,” he said. “I believe that’s directly attributable to the steps that we’re taking, and your hard work … 90 will become a small number moving into the future [but] it’s better news at least than many are having.”
Here is other news on COVID-19 today:
- Beshear said the deaths were two women in Louisville, aged 60 and 88; two men in Louisville, 64 and 69; an 85-year-old woman in Madison County, and a 66-year-old woman in Hopkins County.
- Baptist Health Lexington has used blood plasma from a recovered COVID-19 patient “as a potential treatment for two critically ill COVID-19 patients,” the hospital announced. “The mortality rate for patients in their conditions is 50 percent to 80 percent, according to Dr. Mark Dougherty, infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist,” the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. “But he said the two patients were improving and that he was “cautiously optimistic” about their conditions.”
- “Many frontline health-care workers’ protection is being sacrificed for the sake of conservation,” Alex Acquisto reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader, in a chilling story about the critical shortage of personal protective equipment.
- Beshear announced a toll-free number to guide donations of PPE: 1-833-GIVE-PPE. He said donations are being accepted at state police posts and Transportation Cabinet district offices in Louisville and Lexignton. “I believe we have millions and millions of pieces of PPE that are out there in Kentucky,” he said.
- Beshear called on 3M Corp. to temporarily license its patent for the badly needed N95 respirator mask so other companies can make it, and President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act “to ensure the federal government acquires more N95s,” the Louisville Courier Journal reports.
- The University of Kentucky said it would convert its football practice facility, Nutter Fieldhouse, into a 400-bed field hospital.
- UK researchers and faculty have formed a workgroup “to focus on advising COVID-19 patient care and clinical trials based on emerging research and potential treatment options,” UK says.
- Kentucky homeless shelters say the state’s homeless are highly vulnerable to the coronavirus, and the shelters have asked Gov. Andy Beshear to use some of the state’s emergency federal money to help them, the Herald-Leader reports.
- “Four in 10 Americans are not properly allowing disinfectant sprays and wipes to kill the viruses and germs that can make us sick,” says the American Cleaning Institute, citing a poll it commissioned.
- Stomach pain, diarrhea, nausea without vomiting, and loss of smell could indicate you have the virus, Louisville’s health director says.
- Music can help people deal with the stress caused by isolation and other ramifications of the coronavirus, an Ohio State professor says.
- Asked by Kentucky Health News about farmers’ markets, Beshear said social distancing must be practiced, and there should be one big change: “If you touch it, you buy it.”
- Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer urged retailers that are still open to enforce social-distancing rules. “Everybody has to act like they have the virus. … Put six feet of life-saving space between you and other people. … This is not negotiable.” He said he would have to close parks and other public spaces if noncompliance continues.
- Bank and real-estate lobbies have asked Beshear “to put guidelines in place for county clerk’s offices, saying that their closure halts essential services,” the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. “While some clerk’s offices have remained open or adjusted their operations, others have closed in an effort to help slow the spread of COVID-19.” Beshear said Thursday that the Kentucky County Clerks Association told him it was working with the groups that sent the letter to address their concerns.
- With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expected to recommend that Americans wear masks in public, the town of Midway, population 1,700, is rounding up volunteers to make them.
- The type of fabric used in homemade masks “is key to their effectiveness, according to tests performed at Wake Forest Baptist Health,” it says in a news release. “The best-performing design was constructed of two layers of high-quality, heavyweight “quilter’s cotton” with a thread count of 180 or more, and those with especially tight weave and thicker thread such as batiks. A double-layer mask with a simple cotton outer layer and an inner layer of flannel also performed well. … The inferior performers consisted of single-layer masks or double-layer designs of lower quality, lightweight cotton.”
- Responding to increased consumer demand for eggs during the pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration is allowing grocery stores to sell eggs in unlabeled flats and cartons that are typically sold to restaurants and bakeries.
- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told McClatchy Newspapers that there are “bound to be plenty of mistakes” with implementing the COVID-19 economic-rescue package. “You can’t pass a bill of this magnitude in a week and have a perfect implementation of $2.2 trillion.” The Washington Post has details.
- The Herald-Leader and the Courier Journal did front-page stories on the Dawson Springs church whose revival sparked a COVID-19 outbreak in Hopkins and other counties.
- Covid-19 “seems to be causing gun sales to skyrocket across the country, but … Kentucky was the only state to have a decrease in gun background checks, according to data released by the FBI, the Herald-Leader reports.
- A Northern Kentucky woman is suing Beshear and Attorney General Daniel Cameron in federal court, challenging Beshear’s order that people entering Kentucky from other states must quarantine themselves for 14 days.
- “A Lexington-based uniform company that provides N95 masks to police has been accused of price gouging by two Arizona lawmakers,” the Herald-Leader reports. Galls, a uniform, equipment and gear store, was targeted in a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr Wednesday. “Galls provides masks to Phoenix’s police and fire departments, according to a letter posted online by Scripps.” UPDATE: Gall’s said it would sell to the agencies without making a profit.
Saturday 4/4 update (original post)
A steep drop in flu cases in Kentucky shows that social-distancing measures taken to fight the coronavirus are working, Gov. Andy Beshear said Saturday.
“It is preventing wider spread of, certainly, the flu,” Beshear said. “Now, we believe the coronavirus spreads a lot faster and a lot more aggressively at this point, but look at that downward trend and know that if we stick with this, if we follow the rules and restrictions, we will absolutely lessen or slow the spread of the coronavirus.”
Beshear said those who follow Friday’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation to wear cloth masks in public when around others, such as grocery trips, “does not replace the social distancing piece. Just because you wear a mask doesn’t mean you can get within six feet of somebody and still have a conversation.” He also warned against fiddling with masks: “You can’t touch your face;” and using surgical or N95 respirator masks that are needed by health-care workers.
Urging social distancing despite pleasant weather, Beshear said, “What every single one of us does matters every day, every decision, every action.”
Asked about Jack Roberts, a Bullitt County pastor who plans to hold services Sunday despite the ban on mass gatherings, Beshear said, “If you are still holding mass gatherings, church or otherwise, you are spreading the coronavirus and you are likely causing the death of Kentuckians.”
The Louisville Courier Journal‘s story on Maryville Baptist Church in Hillview and other churches noted that Our Savior Lutheran Church in Hillview is holding services, but “attendance is limited to those who register online” and “seating is restricted to every other pew.”
Beshear said he had heard reports of people going door to door seeking church attendees. “You cannot go door to door right now for any reason,” he said. “I mean, folks, that’s how people die.”
At his daily press conference, Beshear displayed a photo montage of Aron Jordan, a 49-year-old bricklayer from Ashland who died of COVID-19 in a Detroit hospital after quarantining himself in the city so he wouldn’t risk infecting his family. Mandy McLaren of the Courier Journal told his story, marking the first time a Kentucky COVID-19 victim was identified.
Jordan is believed to be Kentucky’s youngest COVID-19 victim. Beshear announced three new deaths Saturday: A 56-year-old woman in Lexington, a 52-year-old woman in Bullitt County and an 81-year-old man in Boone County, bringing the state’s death toll to 40.
Beshear said Kentucky confirmed 92 new cases Saturday and eliminated six duplicates from Friday’s report of 90, for a total of 917; he said 130, or 14 percent, have been hospitalized and 76 remain so. The day’s two relative hotspots were Hopkins and Simpson counties, which each reported five cases.
Other developments on the COVID-19 front Saturday:
- Two residents and two staffers at a Kuttawa nursing home tested positive for the virus, and most of the test results haven’t come back yet. Beshear said the state tested everyone in a wing with a patient who developed COVID-19, “the most testing we’ve seen in any of these facilities.” But Lyon County Judge-Executive Wade White wants broader testing, and “said state officials were initially reluctant to provide tests, and most were provided by local hospitals,” reports the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting.
- Beshear has allowed trails at state parks to stay open, but some local officials wish he would close them because of gatherings at trailheads, Will Wright reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.
- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said there needs to be a fourth COVID-19 relief bill, “a more targeted response to what we got wrong and what we didn’t do enough for” in previous bills, with health care at the top of the list.
- Beshear and Health and Family Services Secretary Eric Friedlander urged Kentuckians without health insurance to sign up for Medicaid. “We’ve taken a 20-page application and made it one” page, and people are available to help complete the application.
- Friedlander said the state has asked the federal government for a waiver to allow people in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to use their electronic benefit transfer cards to order groceries online.
- People in the small town of Midway enjoyed Yard Art, the latest in a series of events to occupy children and, in this case, adults.
- Noting sacrifices made by other generations, Beshear said that for them, “The time or even the victory was uncertain. We know here we’re not looking at years, we’re looking at months, and we know we will come out of this on the other side.”
Video of Friday 4/3 press conference
Note: Presser starts at about the 5:00 mark.
https://www.facebook.com/GovAndyBeshear/videos/153808079281052/
Video of Saturday 4/4 press conference
Note: Presser starts at about the 3:45 mark.
https://www.facebook.com/GovAndyBeshear/videos/572893636662114/