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Kentucky Health News
Citing what his health chief called "the fastest and steepest rise of the entire pandemic" Tuesday, Gov. Andy Beshear issued an emergency order requiring masks for everyone over age 2 in schools, preschools, Head Start centers and child-care centers.
"We are to the point where we cannot allow our kids to go into these buildings unprotected, unvaccinated, and face this Delta variant," Beshear said, because the cases in early-opening schools show that "They will not get in-person learning, we will have massive quarantines, and we'll have parents that can't go to work."
Without a mask mandate, "We would be sending them to the deadliest version of a chicken-pox party imaginable," Beshear said, alluding to experts' belief that the variant is about as contagious as chicken pox, which is highly contagious.
Beshear noted that children under 12 can't be vaccinated yet, and Health Commissioner Steven Stack said only a third of Kentucky kids 12 to 17 have had at least one dose of a vaccine. Some Kentucky school districts have required masks, but at least two-thirds have not.
Beshear and Stack pointed to graphs showing the recent steep increases in coronavirus cases, Covid-19 hospitalizations, intensive-care cases and mechanical ventilation, and said at the current rate of increase, without some intervention, the state would exceed previous records within two weeks.
Beshear said some hospitals are already filling up and trying to find places to transfer patients. He has said that the hospital situation would be the key as he considers other measures to fight the virus.
"We won't be afraid, if necessary, to institute a statewide mask mandate for indoors outside the home," he said. He imposed such a mandate from July 2020 to June 2021.
"There is no dispute, other than the junk and lies that people put on the internet, that masks work," he said.
Frankfort School Supt. Houston Barber said the mask mandate in his independent district "has been highly effective in the first two weeks of classes, with a limited number of cases and "no evidence of spread."
Beshear was asked how confident he is that schools will enforce his mandate. "Well, if they care one lick about their kids, they certainly will," he said. "If they claim to be educators, and every single public-health agency, from the CDC to their local health department has said it's the only way to stay in school, and otherwise you're gonna shut down businesses, they will."
Beshear also cited support from teachers' unions, all directors of district and independent county health departments, and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, whose top two officials appeared at his press conference.
"We have been through this cycle before," said Chamber Chair Winston Griffin, president of Laurel Grocery Co. in London. "It greatly impacts the commerce of this state." He said the ultimate solution is vaccination. "This thing is going the wrong way," he said. "Please get a vaccine."
Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey and Connecticut have also imposed school mask mandates.
from KENTUCKY HEALTH NEWS https://ift.tt/37AiNep
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