"The parents were being pitted between their church and government," he said. Voelker said they're happy with the ruling, but noted it was a "tough position." "The federal court’s ruling could place thousands of Kentucky children at risk and undoubtedly expose them to the most dangerous version of COVID-19 we have ever seen," Staley said.īertelsman "ruled without hearing from the Governor and with absolutely no consideration of the consequences of exposure and quarantine that we will see," Staley continued. Search the data: How many COVID-19 cases and quarantines are in your JCPS school? Masks will continue to be required in those settings. Thursday's order does not impact separate mask requirements implemented by the Kentucky Department of Education and the Department of Public Health for public K-12 schools and child care centers. A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Louisville said Friday their schools will continue to require masks. On Friday, Bertelsman said he would consider narrowing the ruling at a hearing scheduled for Tuesday at 1 p.m. The current order makes no distinction between where the mandate can and cannot be enforced.įollowing the ruling, the Diocese of Covington's superintendent of schools Kendra McGuire told families they would be returning to a masks-optional policy. District Court Judge William Bertelsman granted a temporary restraining order Thursday, blocking Beshear's mask mandate after a group of parents sued on behalf of their kids, who attend a private school in Northern Kentucky.īoth parties have agreed the order should apply only to schools in the Diocese of Covington, according to Beshear's spokeswoman Crystal Staley and the parents' attorney, Brandon Voelker. However, the ruling only affects private schools, since the Kentucky Department of Education separately has required masks at all public schools. Andy Beshear from enforcing Kentucky's school mask mandate, saying Beshear's recent executive order is akin to "tyranny." More than a third of the state’s 96 acute care hospitals have reported critical staffing shortages, he said.A federal judge has enjoined Gov. The governor on Monday said he again authorized the deployment of roughly 450 Kentucky National Guard members to hospitals, which are in need of extra assistance due to both a rising number of coronavirus patients and too few staff.
As has been the case in previous surges, the primary concern is not physical space, but available staff, and with omicron’s high transmissibility, “we are seeing spread in hospitals among staff,” Beshear said, which is a “serious concern.” The volume of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has increased by 17% in the last seven days, and 134 adult intensive care unit beds are open. In a matter of weeks, the commonwealth has gone from roughly “half our delta peak to more than double our delta peak,” he said. “We are now nearly at a vertical spike, the likes of which dwarf all prior escalations. More so than in any other stage of the pandemic, “the omicron phase is both remarkable and distinctive from prior surges,” Kentucky Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said, referencing the speed at which omicron spreads. If it spread at the rate we’re seeing, it is certainly going to fill up our hospitals.”
#Andy beshear masks update#
“We have never seen an escalation like this,” the governor said in an afternoon news update of the exponential growth. Last week brought a staggeringly high number of new cases, dwarfing all other weeks in the pandemic: 52,603, nearly double the previous weekly record of 30,680 new cases.
Silas is throttling Kentucky, where health officials continue to clock unprecedented numbers of COVID-19 cases, solidifying a reality many have feared: Hospitals will again be strained, Gov. Beshear talked about the pandemic, the multiple natural disasters that struck across the state and the economic development that also came to Kentucky in 2021.
Andy Beshear replaces his mask after giving a State of the Commonwealth address from the House of Representatives at the Capitol in Frankfort, Ky., Wednesday, January 5, 2022.
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