Officials warn Kentuckians to follow rules, to keep economy open; Beshear says spike could bring a mask order or ‘surgical’ moves

Until there is a vaccine, the rules are to keep your hands washed, stay six feet away from anyone who doesn’t live in your home, get tested regularly and, most important, wear a mask when in public.

“The single most powerful thing you can do and the cheapest is to wear these mask,” said state Health Commissioner Steven Stack, a physician.

Beshear was asked why he didn’t mandate the wearing of masks in public, as some states and localities have. “It’s because of where our numbers are,” he said. “If we have significant increases, we will look at mandating masks.” He said such an order would require a mask only when a person is unable to keep six feet away from others, as in indoor shopping spaces.

Beshear said he could approach surges of new cases “surgically,” by location.

“If we see a spike like we’ve seen in other places, we are going to pause the reopening stuff that we are doing,” he said. “We are going to look at what are the highest-spreading areas. . . . address the issue that is there, and then look at whatever else we have to do.”

Stack pointed to several states that have seen spikes in the past two weeks and warned that it would be easy for Kentucky to follow in their path if Kentuckians don’t follow the rules as the state moves to the next phase of reopening.

He said Arizona’s number of cases has more than doubled in the past two weeks, increasing from 180 per million residents to 400 per million; in Florida, from 80 to 300 per million; and in South Carolina, from 125 to 250.

He said that for the last two weeks, Kentucky has stayed at 50 cases per million. “That is not an accident,” he said. “That is because you have made sacrifices.”

Beshear announced 282 new cases Tuesday, bringing the state’s total to 15,624. He said the state continues to be in a plateau, between 150 and 300 new cases daily, and “It’s something we’ve got to watch very carefully.”

One metric that state officials watch to determine future actions is hospitalizations. Tuesday’s number was hit 408, the first time it has exceeded 400 since June 17; it has trended up in the last week. Beshear said hospitals are using less than 60% of their hospital beds, 73% of their intensive care beds and 27% of their ventilators. Click here for the daily report.

Since last Wednesday, 189 more residents of long-term-care facilities and 100 more staff have tested positive for the virus, for totals of 1,887 and 912, respectively. He said 18 more residents had died from covid-19, bringing that total up to 358, plus three employees. Click here for details on each facility.

In other covid-19 news Tuesday: