Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said all coronavirus safety measures are still in effect following a Kentucky Supreme Court Ruling today.
The court blocked lower courts from suspending Beshear’s executive orders regarding coronavirus until “everything can be fully argued and briefed in front of the Supreme Court.”
Beshear said Attorney General Daniel Cameron this week asked a court in Boone County for every single order the Beshear administration has put in place to be overturned and to prevent future orders.
“Until about an hour, an hour and a half ago, we faced a horribly uncertain future, where a request had been made to have zero rules, the wild west, no requirement to wear masks even though Alabama and now Colorado have done it in just the last couple days...But thankfully today the Kentucky Supreme Court put in an order a little less than two hours ago that is going to prevent any orders from these lower courts that would restrain these things we’ve done to keep people safe from going into effect,” Beshear said.
Beshear said he is not excited, but relieved. He said the supreme court has ensured the safety and lives of Kentuckians while at the same time saying they will accept all substantive arguments later.
“And I’m happy to do that folks. These are emergency powers provided by the legislature to the governor to respond in a time like this, but if we want to argue in front of a court let’s do it. I’m not afraid of courts. That’s what I used to do.”
Beshear said he thinks the supreme court found a balance and “hopefully that means we can move forward protecting people and anyone who wants to be heard can be heard.”
Beshear said today we have the third highest number of coronavirus cases the state has ever had. He confirmed 531 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 21,605 positives out of 525,267 tests. He said these include 10 kids under five years of age, with three under one year old. The new cases also include 25 long-term care facility residents and 17 staff members. Four additional child care facilities also have at least one coronavirus case connected to it. The total number of affected child care facilities is 23.
Beshear said the positivity rate for tests is 4.19% this week.
“Once you go over five percent they start saying you ought to consider rolling back some reopenings,” he said.
Beshear reminded people the number of positive cases tend to trail the initial infection by 10 to 14 days, assuming quick turn-around on the tests.
Beshear said 452 Kentuckians are currently in the hospital for coronavirus and 89 are in the ICU. He said 6,772 people have recovered from the virus.
He also reported eight new deaths due to coronavirus. Kentucky now has a total of 653 deaths.
