New guidelines revealed for reopening St. Louis County

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update December 10, 2020
Notes by mr_tyler_durden and Daily Update Team
Watch here:

• Youtube: Update (YT Channel)
• Facebook: Update (FB Page)

Headlines

• 213,450 Cases (+4,324), 2,146 Deaths (+28)
• New cases by county: 659x Jefferson, 368x Fayette, 135x Pulaski, 132x Kenton, 119x Boyd, 115x Boone, 106x Warren, 100x McCracken, 93x Hardin, 82x Daviess, 78x Madison, 65x Campbell, 64x Taylor, 61x Russell, 56x Bullitt, 56x Shelby, 56x Whitley, 53x Pike, 52x Perry, 51x Christian, 47x Lincoln, 46x Jessamine, 45x Franklin, 43x Scott, 42x Calloway, 40x Adair, 40x Wayne, 38x Boyle, 38x Harlan, 37x Greenup, 36x Graves, 36x Knox, 36x Marshall, 36x McCreary, 36x Ohio, 36x Oldham, 33x Gallatin, 33x Henderson, 33x Laurel, 32x Carter, 32x Spencer, 31x Nelson, 29x Cumberland, 28x Barren, 28x Mercer, 27x Casey, 27x Hart, 27x Rockcastle, 26x Floyd, 26x Woodford, 24x Muhlenberg, 23x Hopkins, 23x Montgomery, 22x Clinton, 22x Fleming, 21x Johnson, 21x Pendleton, 20x Bell, 20x Elliott, 20x Simpson, 19x Marion, 18x Rowan, 18x Trimble, 17x Allen, 17x Clark, 17x Clay, 17x Green, 15x Bourbon, 15x Henry, 15x Lawrence, 15x Logan, 15x Washington, 14x Garrard, 14x Grant, 14x Letcher, 13x Butler, 13x Carlisle, 13x Crittenden, 13x Larue, 13x Livingston, 13x Magoffin, 13x Metcalfe, 13x Union, 12x Knott, 12x Meade, 12x Monroe, 11x Carroll, 11x Powell, 10x Anderson, 10x Harrison, 9x Caldwell, 9x Grayson, 9x Jackson, 8x Breathitt, 8x Lyon, 8x Mason, 7x Martin, 7x McLean, 7x Todd, 6x Edmonson, 6x Hickman, 6x Lewis, 5x Ballard, 5x Leslie, 5x Morgan, 5x Trigg, 5x Webster, 4x Bath, 4x Breckinridge, 4x Lee, 4x Owen, 2x Robertson, 2x Wolfe, 1x Estill, 1x Fulton, 1x Hancock, 1x Menifee, 1x Nicholas, 1x Owsley
• New deaths by county: 72 M Adair, 61 M Adair, 63 F Barren, 61 F Boyd, 71 M Casey, 94 F Christian, 83 F Clinton, 92 F Cumberland, 95 F Fayette, 78 M Fleming, 93 M Henderson, 70 F Hopkins, 96 F Hopkins, 91 F Jefferson, 70 M Jefferson, 88 M Jefferson, 69 M Jefferson, 72 M Jefferson, 75 M Martin, 96 F McCracken, 92 F Montgomery, 97 F Oldham, 99 M Oldham, 59 M Owsley, 81 M Russell, 88 M Russell, 85 F Taylor, 74 M Wayne
• Good News:
  • Jobs: Protective Life Corp is relocating its core site for the Greater Cincinnati region to the River Center Towers in Covington. & Enviroflight LLC, which produces black soldier fly larvae, used for animal and plant nutrition, opened its 112,500 square foot Maysville operation in 2018.
  • Vaccine: If the Pfizer vaccine is authorized in the next several days, shipments could go out and we believe that we could be vaccinating individuals as early as December the 15th. So, next week that's next Tuesday, we are likely to see the first vaccinations happening in Kentucky. Now, the very next week, provided emergency authorization is given, we believe that we will be using the Moderna vaccine, as well. In fact, when we get it may even be the end of the week of the 13th through the 19th. We've been asked to plan for that flexibility, and that's a great ask- it means we got to speed up some of our plans, but it is absolutely worth it.
• On Monday, the entities and groups in this most recent executive order, as far as restaurants, bars, gyms, fitness centers, pools, other indoor recreation facilities, venue event spaces, and theaters, and professional services are going to be able to return to the capacity percentages that they were previously subject to. So for restaurants and bars, that'll be 50% capacity of the indoor dining. But there has to be a renewed commitment to enforcing the mask mandate. <...> Social gatherings are going to stay at a recommended 2 households, 8 individuals, obviously if your household is bigger than 8 we're not telling you you can't be in the same household together, let's all be reasonable. Going back to restaurants and bars, curfew will still be in effect, service stops at 11, must close no later than midnight. Gyms, fitness centers, pools, other indoor recreation activities, 50% capacity, but masks must be worn while exercising, obviously not in the pool, but we have now seen that they can be worn in gyms, that can be worn safely, and that adds an extra level of protection. Venues, event spaces, and theaters, back to 50%. Professional Services, back to 50% o:f employees. All employees who are able to work from home, though, really should still be working from home based on where we are and what we are seeing. We believe that this shock to the system is working, we'll talk about one indicator that shows that.<...>
• Dr. Stack: So this is obviously a map of Kentucky, the 10 Hospital Preparedness regions are shown here- numbered 1 through 10. Four of them have a red color and the other six are blue. The ones that are red are where ICU capacity is currently filled beyond 80%. If you look down at region 10,<...> you can look down there and see it as 97.8% of their ICU beds are full. That's not good. If you look just to the left, region number four, I won't read those counties in respect of our interpreter here, there's 92% of the ICU beds are full. If you jump up to region six, this is Northern Kentucky, over 81%. And if you go out to the eastern region- so this would be Pike County and the surrounding areas- 90% full. This is important. When you start going over 85%- Now again, I'm giving you rough numbers here, because there's never an absolute precise number, it's not a magical single digit number. But when you go over 85% full you have to start making difficult choices, because not every bed, not every staff member can care for all the same sorts of people. Not every ICU does the same sorts of intensive medical care. Some specialize in cardiac recovery patients, right after an open heart surgery; some specialize in neurological or neurosurgical patients. Others specialize in pediatric patients that we typically rarely used for an adult patient. So you start having to make more difficult choices, including having to postpone or defer surgeries or procedures for patients who would have to stay in the hospital after those procedures.
• Dr. Stack : The vaccine available to all hospitals, and this will be the Moderna shipment. Not all hospitals will cross the finish line and we're trying to reach out to them personally, like the Governor said, to make sure they can buddy up or partner with someone else. So we're doing a lot. I spoke with my team, almost 600 representatives from hospitals across the state for almost an hour and a half a couple days ago, orienting to the program. And of course we must speak to 1,000s of people every week trying to roll these things out. Things about the vaccine to share. It is for people 16 and over. There's a lot more data that has to be reviewed in the application. And then the advisory committees will recommend, if there's any considerations for different populations, who might benefit more or less, or where we might prioritize. And then a different committee will recommend, which population should be in that phase 1B, 1C, phase 2. And all of us are doing our very best to try to figure out how we use this scarce resource at the very beginning to have the greatest positive good for the people who most need it, and help to restore as much of society as quickly as possible to the normalcy we all miss and want to get back to so quickly.
• I’ve got a couple of questions on the school reopening plans, the KY association of school superintendents released their recommendations yesterday, and I wanted to get your reaction on one aspect of that. They're looking for more refined local data, and possibly raising the threshold on the Coronavirus incidence rate map to better guide their local decisions on whether or not to open schools. And secondly what do you say to superintendents and other school leaders who believe that they should have been the ones to make the decision on closing schools versus an executive order? -- Well, let me answer the last one first, superintendents out there say that to you in the media and then they call us saying “Don't put this pressure on us”. Alright? You can't have it both ways. We reached a point where it was no longer safe, we were going to have a surge after Thanksgiving, the tool that we put in place to make determinations not only was fully red but instead of 6% which we normally set it for, we reached 10%. As far as the color coded map that wasn't-- we didn't create that-- it was the CDC, and the CDC set the levels and that's what they originally said was safe or unsafe. Now we're working on a way that we believe that we can operate school safely, even in red zones. But for the “we want more localized data”, the data that was originally requested and agreed upon was that map. I mean there's “not liking the outcome” but that is some of the best data on what is going on in your community. On top of that, we have a dashboard for every single Kentuckian showing every reported case by school, number of quarantine students, number of quarantine teachers. We had 10,000 quarantine students before I made that decision. 10,000. So, you know, tough decisions aren't easy right? That's why they call them “tough decisions”. And we're going to make sure that there are protections for employees in the school. I repeatedly hear people talk about schools in a way of the kids being safe and that is so important. Those are my kids that go to those schools, but they totally ignore the staff in the building. We've lost a custodian, two bus drivers, a teacher, and a student, and that's just what we know about. We've shown specific examples from some private schools, about the spread through a school and the death of a grandparent. So this is real, and we've got public health guiding us every step of the way. Sure, it's not popular, though there's significant support out there for the steps we took; it's not going to be popular with some parents but that's what leadership's about. It's not the number of emails that you get complaining, it's doing the right thing. And all we're trying to do is the right thing and we think that we're going to have a good and a clear plan, but it's one that's got to provide real protection to the employees, and not not simply be a decision that one individual makes, and everybody else has to be in that building no matter what.
• Going back to Dr Stack’s presentation where he noted on the map of the four areas with the ICU capacity high. Is it feasible, number one, to transport patients from ICU to neighboring counties? And if so do you see that happening?-- I tell you what is as long as Dr Stack is still here, given that he worked, and has worked in an ER for most of his career, let's go to him.
  • [..] In a normal world, you may have an individual hospital who has a problem or you may have a couple or a few hospitals that have a problem. This is not a normal world, what you have is a massive pandemic that is straining hospitals all over the place. So, people should not take solace that if we act irresponsibly and we allow this disease to spread rampantly, that there's going to be a place to go. Now I don't say that to add to your fear, but I mean, it is hard enough on a daily day-to-day basis in an emergency department to arrange some transfers to other facilities. In a time when hospitals all over a region, a state, and a whole region of states in the country are all strained at the same time? No, you cannot just say it's somewhere else to be sent to. [...] But no, I really put a bright line on this, this is a serious problem, and it's not reasonable to hope for relief just in the neighboring hospital who itself may also be strapped.
• Slides from Update

Full Notes

• Hi everybody, it's four o'clock, that time we come together and remember that we're gonna get through this, we're gonna get through this together. We're going to start today with some good news, some new jobs we're going to see here in the Commonwealth. Then we're going to talk about our report which has some good and some bad news in it. But overall, we still think that the trends are positive, we're going to talk about the vaccine, again, we're going to talk about the reversion to some previous capacity limits with our executive order expiring on Sunday evening at 11:59pm. And then Dr Stack’s going to talk a little bit about hospital capacity around the state.
• So let's start with some good news. I'm very happy to announce a relocation project that will create a significant number of great job opportunities for our residents in Northern Kentucky. And it furthers our efforts to attract not just jobs, but to create high wage jobs for Kentuckians. Protective Life Corp is relocating its core site for the Greater Cincinnati region to the River Center Towers in Covington. The new office will employ 100 people next year, and the company plans to more than double that job growth in the coming years, paying substantial wages. This, more than $17M investment, will establish the location as one of Protective Life’s three core regional locations along with St. Louis, and the company's headquarters in Birmingham. I want to thank the company's leaders for this commitment to Covington and the Commonwealth, as well as everybody who played a role in landing this project in Kentucky- because this is a big one. I know it took a coordinated effort to bring this project together at both the city and the state level, but that’s what team Kentucky does. Financial service and insurance industry jobs pay, on the national average, $111,000 a year. It's an industry that offers both stability and great opportunity and we will continue to work our best to bring these and other professional service jobs right here to Kentucky. The addition of Protective Life will be a major part of the industry's growth in the next decade and beyond and I can't wait to see the next positive steps for this company. Now I'd like to share with you a video message from Covington Mayor Joe Meyer. He knows, like I know, that this is a home run. We are getting an anchor corporate citizen in Northern Kentucky and 100 jobs, really high wages, with more to come, that's pretty exciting, especially in the midst of a pandemic. I'll let Mayor Meyer further explain why Protective Life will be a perfect fit for his great city.
• Video: Good afternoon. This is Joe Meyer, I'm the mayor of Covington and it's a great day for our city. We have a lot of momentum here, and we're thrilled to welcome Protective Life to Covington. From a tired river-based manufacturing town Covington has morphed into a city where finance and insurance is our largest chapter, representing over 18% of the jobs in the city. We have an active and growing bio and life services, life sciences sector, a strong design branding marketing and technology firms, and a creative energy in our business community that is just palpable. Protective Life will fit right in. And their employees will like it here too. Covington is filled with historic spaces, fascinating architecture, a national reputation for being welcoming and inclusive, over 1000 acres of parks, green space, and trails, and a cool urban vibe featuring authentic and quirky restaurants and bars that establish a really enjoyable social environment. Time and again the companies who move here have told us that one of the main reasons they come here is because their leaders and employees have fallen in love with the quality of life in Covington. And we're just getting started- our Riverfront Commons project is nearly nearing completion, and we're just getting started on the 23 acres IRS site redevelopment. So this progress wouldn't be happening without a lot of help from a whole lot of people and today we especially want to thank Governor Beshear and Secretary Hayes and the entire cabinet for economic development for their true support for Covington’s revitalization and for the staunch leadership that they've given the state of Kentucky during these difficult times.
• So that's Joe Meyer from Covington. This is one that I'm really excited about. I was personally involved in working to convince them to come here, it's a great day for Northern Kentucky, and for all of Kentucky.
• So I want to move from bringing a great industry and company from an industry to Kentucky to what we're doing to build another industry of the future. I want to recognize an existing Kentucky agritech company that has seen significant growth in a very short amount of time. Enviroflight LLC, which produces black soldier fly larvae, used for animal and plant nutrition, opened its 112,500 square foot Maysville operation in 2018. And they've had a very busy couple years. Today, the company moved forward with its plans to more than double the size of the facility, to add capacity, and meet customer demand. Importantly, the company has grown over the past two years from 12 employees to a staff of 73 people. This expansion will create 40 additional full-time jobs for the people in and around Mason County. The 40 jobs being created through this $20M expansion include production and processing techs as well as engineering, data analysis, and statistician positions. This is another instance of quality job opportunities, being created for the workforce throughout our state. I talk quite a bit about our agritech initiative, and our goal to establish our state as a national leader in the industry. And I think about a year ago today, when I was inaugurated, talking about agritech. And in many ways it felt like a plan, or even a dream, knowing we had some here who was doing it, but we had so much potential. doing it. But we had so much potential. So much has happened in just a year from companies like Enviroflight expanding to AppHarvest opening the largest greenhouse in North America, one of the 10 largest buildings in the world with the most sophisticated LED lighting system. It's happening. And Enviroflight shows the investment that is going on in agritech right now, and they're the perfect example that this is the place to come for agritech and not just start, but grow. And that for all those startups out there, especially in this sector, Kentucky is a place for you. I want to thank the local leadership of Maysville and Mason County, as well as our state and local economic development teams for helping to facilitate this expansion, and a special thank you to Enviroflight’s leadership for their continued support of Mason County and Kentucky.
• You know, let's continue. Some of the good news, and let's talk again about vaccines. And I want to continue to go over what the plans are and what they are to date, just so again, so there's no confusion. Today, the committee is meeting to decide, or make a recommendation, on emergency authorization of Pfizer's vaccine. They'll be doing the same next week for Moderna’s vaccine. If the Pfizer vaccine is authorized in the next several days, shipments could go out and we believe that we could be vaccinating individuals as early as December the 15th. So, next week that's next Tuesday, we are likely to see the first vaccinations happening in Kentucky. Now, the very next week, provided emergency authorization is given, we believe that we will be using the Moderna vaccine, as well. In fact, when we get it may even be the end of the week of the 13th through the 19th. We've been asked to plan for that flexibility, and that's a great ask- it means we got to speed up some of our plans, but it is absolutely worth it. So we believe that in the month of December, we will have three Pfizer allocations, though final numbers haven't been put on anything but that very first one that's being sent out. We have received, what we hope, are final numbers for the two shipments of Moderna, that are going to happen in December. So remember, Pfizer's allocation, about two thirds starts our long term care vaccination program, run by CVS and Walgreens. CVS and Walgreens contractually will have about a week from that earliest date to get up and going and have their vaccinations moving. We hope, and that's an aggressive timetable, that we can vaccinate our long term care community in two months, before March the first. It represents 66% of all the fatalities we have in Kentucky so, eliminating that would be a major game changer. One third of the Pfizer allocation goes to front frontline health care workers. So, that next shipment, Madonna, that's 76,000 doses, that's actually going to get to go fully to our frontline health care workers, and to EMS. The reason for that is that the next couple Pfizer allocations are going to go to that long term care program. So what that means is that all of our other acute care hospitals that weren't in the first 11 for the first week of Pfizer are going to have some allocation of this Moderna vaccine in that second week to make sure they can get some of their most important workers who are exposed to COVID vaccinated. We are working very hard to onboard all of those hospitals onto the system they have to be to directly receive it. And for those that might not be onboarded on time, we are creating partner hospitals that will provide vaccinations to the employees of the hospital that may not be fully on board. This is really important, our frontline health care workers not only deserve to be first, but it protects the health care capacity of these individuals, not being sick, and not being lost to us. So, we believe that this plan, these two priorities, are the right priorities, and we are so excited. Beginning, maybe even next week, to see the first vaccinations here in Kentucky. Now, we're going to do these groups and then the next major group after what we've talked about in Kentucky are going to be our educators- so that we can push and push and push, not just to have some form of in-person classes, but to be able to, we hope, in this next semester, have have larger and larger and safer capacities within our school buildings. We know how important it is to get kids back to in-person learning. Monday at the earliest, Tuesday at the latest, we'll have our plan, on January the fourth, and how red counties can still do some form of in-person learning. But there is no question that what we have to do to get back to that fully is to have vaccines offered to and given to school personnel and those in and around those buildings. But I know everybody is saying, “When me? When me?” and it's going to take us knowing the amounts of vaccines we're going to get and when. And that depends on how many more authorized, and how much is manufactured. It's really going to take patience and it's really going to test us. And we think we're talking about spring to summer, hopefully at the latest for getting significant numbers out and reaching more and more of the population. But again, we're gonna need your patience. Those who can suffer the greatest amount of harm need this first, and I think we all know that. We're just going to have to live out that value of sacrificing a little bit more, and waiting a little bit longer, knowing the person who gets it in front of us is more likely to suffer a negative outcome than we are.
• Alright. On Monday, the entities and groups in this most recent executive order, as far as restaurants, bars, gyms, fitness centers, pools, other indoor recreation facilities, venue event spaces, and theaters, and professional services are going to be able to return to the capacity percentages that they were previously subject to. So for restaurants and bars, that'll be 50% capacity of the indoor dining. But there has to be a renewed commitment to enforcing the mask mandate. Just about all of us know, and we can admit, that after an initial push and an initial good job in July, moving into August of enforcing it, enforcement got really lax. And it could have been because people would get upset or yell at other people but enforcing this is a difference between safe and unsafe, people living and people dying, and so, we need a renewed commitment to that. Social gatherings are going to stay at a recommended 2 households, 8 individuals, obviously if your household is bigger than 8 we're not telling you you can't be in the same household together, let's all be reasonable. Going back to restaurants and bars, curfew will still be in effect, service stops at 11, must close no later than midnight. Gyms, fitness centers, pools, other indoor recreation activities, 50% capacity, but masks must be worn while exercising, obviously not in the pool, but we have now seen that they can be worn in gyms, that can be worn safely, and that adds an extra level of protection. Venues, event spaces, and theaters, back to 50%. Professional Services, back to 50% of employees. All employees who are able to work from home, though, really should still be working from home based on where we are and what we are seeing. We believe that this shock to the system is working, we'll talk about one indicator that shows that. Now we do have the highest number of cases that we've ever had today. Even with that we're tracking about 800 fewer cases than last week. Remember, we’ve got a plateau before we can decrease. When we talk about COVID being a fast moving train, it doesn't just immediately turn, you’ve got to slow it down, stop it and turn it around. And we still believe that's what we're seeing even if the cases are so high right now, we want it to immediately decrease. We may also be seeing some of Thanksgiving in the impact in these numbers, that we could be moving in the right way but still Thanksgiving has a major impact. I can tell you that if we're seeing Thanksgiving’s impact, it's a lot less than what we are seeing in some other states.
• Positive cases today: 4,324
• Probable cases: 38,179
• Total confirmed cases: 213,450
• New cases by county: 659x Jefferson, 368x Fayette, 135x Pulaski, 132x Kenton, 119x Boyd, 115x Boone, 106x Warren, 100x McCracken, 93x Hardin, 82x Daviess, 78x Madison, 65x Campbell, 64x Taylor, 61x Russell, 56x Bullitt, 56x Shelby, 56x Whitley, 53x Pike, 52x Perry, 51x Christian, 47x Lincoln, 46x Jessamine, 45x Franklin, 43x Scott, 42x Calloway, 40x Adair, 40x Wayne, 38x Boyle, 38x Harlan, 37x Greenup, 36x Graves, 36x Knox, 36x Marshall, 36x McCreary, 36x Ohio, 36x Oldham, 33x Gallatin, 33x Henderson, 33x Laurel, 32x Carter, 32x Spencer, 31x Nelson, 29x Cumberland, 28x Barren, 28x Mercer, 27x Casey, 27x Hart, 27x Rockcastle, 26x Floyd, 26x Woodford, 24x Muhlenberg, 23x Hopkins, 23x Montgomery, 22x Clinton, 22x Fleming, 21x Johnson, 21x Pendleton, 20x Bell, 20x Elliott, 20x Simpson, 19x Marion, 18x Rowan, 18x Trimble, 17x Allen, 17x Clark, 17x Clay, 17x Green, 15x Bourbon, 15x Henry, 15x Lawrence, 15x Logan, 15x Washington, 14x Garrard, 14x Grant, 14x Letcher, 13x Butler, 13x Carlisle, 13x Crittenden, 13x Larue, 13x Livingston, 13x Magoffin, 13x Metcalfe, 13x Union, 12x Knott, 12x Meade, 12x Monroe, 11x Carroll, 11x Powell, 10x Anderson, 10x Harrison, 9x Caldwell, 9x Grayson, 9x Jackson, 8x Breathitt, 8x Lyon, 8x Mason, 7x Martin, 7x McLean, 7x Todd, 6x Edmonson, 6x Hickman, 6x Lewis, 5x Ballard, 5x Leslie, 5x Morgan, 5x Trigg, 5x Webster, 4x Bath, 4x Breckinridge, 4x Lee, 4x Owen, 2x Robertson, 2x Wolfe, 1x Estill, 1x Fulton, 1x Hancock, 1x Menifee, 1x Nicholas, 1x Owsley
• There are counties here with large numbers, especially for population. So again showing it's dangerous, and it is everywhere.
• Total tests conducted: 3,064,833 (PCR: 2,840,222, Serology: 97,576)
• Positivity Rate: 9.13% - But for the seventh straight day our positivity rate is decreasing. It's now 9.13% and that's what Dr Stack would call a leading indicator, that shows what he believes what we're going to see in the future, and that's a very positive development, one we're gonna have to watch closely. Remember COVID spreads aggressively so at any time that we let our guard down, certainly things could turn in a different direction.
• Total hospitalized: 11,058
• Currently hospitalized: 1,756
• Total in ICU: 2,646
• Currently in ICU: 442
• On a ventilator: 231
• Total recovered: 30,605
• New deaths today: 28
• Total Deaths: 2,146
• New deaths by county: 72 M Adair, 61 M Adair, 63 F Barren, 61 F Boyd, 71 M Casey, 94 F Christian, 83 F Clinton, 92 F Cumberland, 95 F Fayette, 78 M Fleming, 93 M Henderson, 70 F Hopkins, 96 F Hopkins, 91 F Jefferson, 70 M Jefferson, 88 M Jefferson, 69 M Jefferson, 72 M Jefferson, 75 M Martin, 96 F McCracken, 92 F Montgomery, 97 F Oldham, 99 M Oldham, 59 M Owsley, 81 M Russell, 88 M Russell, 85 F Taylor, 74 M Wayne
• Today we've also lost 28 additional Kentuckians. And remember, deaths follow cases. And we've had weeks of very high cases which means we're going to lose more people before we can start decreasing that number. These are 28 families across Kentucky that are hurting and that needs your help, and your care, and your kindness and your compassion. So like your homes up green. It’s the color of compassion, the color of renewal. Knowing that while these individuals are gone their body, it's just a vessel and their spirit lives on and they're going to a very special place.
• Racial breakdown of all cases: 83.75% Caucasian, 9.56% Black or African-American, 1.28% Asian, 5.06% Multiracial
• Ethnicity breakdown of all cases: 93.49% non-Hispanic and 6.51% Hispanic
• Racial breakdown of all deaths: 86.34% Caucasian, 10.28% Black or African-American, 0.76% Asian, 2.57% Multiracial
• Ethnicity breakdown of all deaths: 97.42% non-Hispanic and 2.58% Hispanic
• Long Term Care Facilities (PDF): 239 new residents and 130 new staff positive from yesterday, and 45 more deaths. This is the reason that we have the vaccination plan that we do. Now, I want you to look at some of these numbers. I mean, since the start of this pandemic. 12,075 residents contracted COVID. 8627 staff. And remember, when we think about priority, and the “why”, first of all: this group is dying. Two thirds of all of our deaths. We have a moral obligation to prioritize them for this vaccine, a moral obligation, and nobody tell me that these folks are old and therefore shouldn't get it first. No, every day, every week, every year that we're on earth is a gift and it's important to each and every one of our family members. But second, when someone in a long term care facility contracts COVID oftentimes they need hospitalization and the amount of resources in the hospital is significantly greater than for many other patients. So this priority also gives us increased hospital capacity by freeing up a doctor to see more patients than she or he otherwise would have had the opportunity to do. So, if you don't, if you don't see that it's just the right thing and the moral thing, understand it's something that provides more hospital capacity as well.
  • Total facilities: 400
  • Total deaths: 1469
  • Active cases: 2623 residents, 1294 staff
  • Total cases: 12075 residents, 8627 staff
• K-12 Update (PDF): PDF update only
• University Update (PDF): PDF update only

(continued in stickied comment)

NEW YORK

• Ramona Singer tours $17.9M penthouse (Page Six)

“Real Housewives of New York” star Ramona Singer, who calls herself a “real estate broker in training” recently toured a new penthouse at 200 E. 59th St., that is about to hit the market at $17.96 million.
The 3,826-square-foot penthouse features an outdoor spiral staircase that leads to a covered deck — and 3,461 square feet of exterior space. The tower is from developer Harry Macklowe.
The home features two bedrooms, three bathrooms, with all model residences designed by CetraRuddy.
A townhouse in Hoboken has sold for $5 million — the highest price in five years, when another Hoboken townhouse at 504 Hudson St. sold for $6.5 million in 2016.
The 7,400-square-foot home, at 903 Hudson Street, was built from the ground up in 2014.
The townhouse, which features a limestone facade, comes with six bedrooms, five bathrooms and 2½ bathrooms.
Details include a gym, a landscaped roof deck, a walk-in wine cellar, oak floors, radiant heat, Sonos sound, a built-in humidifier and a three-car parking garage with a private driveway.
Brokers Westley Page and Peter Cossio of Brown Harris Stevens repped the buyers."

• Dorinda shows off her reorganized basement in the Berkshires (Dorinda Medley Instagram/Bravo)

ORANGE COUNTY

• Photos: Braunwyn Windham-Burke kisses her new girlfriend at the beach (Page Six exclusive)

SALT LAKE CITY

• Jen Shah was starstruck meeting the ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Utah natives (Page Six exclusive)

"New Bravolebrity Jen Shah was in shock during the “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” and “Vanderpump Rules” crossover.
Utah natives Katie Maloney and Lala Kent attended 47-year-old Shah’s Sundance party celebrating her cousin’s film on Wednesday night’s episode of the Bravo series.
“I was a little starstruck, so I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, Lala’s here! Wait, wait. She’s like right here!'” the Shah Beauty founder recently told Page Six. “So it was fun getting to hang out with them. And they’re super down to earth …. they’re back at home and they’re very down to earth and they were just it was just fun to hang out, dance, sing, just have fun.”
Shah said the party was just as over-the-top as it appeared on TV with “crystal curtains” and a red carpet with a tunnel.
Kent, 30, hails from Salt Lake City while Maloney, 33, is a Park City native.
The women were introduced by Shah’s co-star Whitney Rose, with Rose explaining in a confessional, “Lala and Katie are Salt Lake City locals. I know Lala through a mutual friend so when I heard they were in town for Lala’s new movie, ‘Spree,’ I insisted to Jen that she invite them to her party because they are so much fun.”
This sighting may be one of the last that Bravo fans get of the “Vanderpump Rules” stars, as their show still isn’t filming amid the coronavirus pandemic.
While it is unclear when the show will resume, their co-stars Jax Taylor and Brittany Cartwright announced that they were leaving the series.
However, fans are hopeful for the series to return and stars Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval both said they would return for another season when the show resumes.
A source close to production recently told us that “it has not been determined when ‘Vanderpump Rules’ will return, but they hope to begin production once restaurants in Los Angeles can safely reopen.”

• Meet Brooks Marks, clothing designer and breakout star of ‘RHOSLC’ (Page Six exclusive)

"Meredith Marks may be one of the newest “Housewives” on Bravo, but her son Brooks is quickly proving to be the breakout star of “RHOSLC.”
Brooks, 21, became an instant fan favorite when “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” premiered in November. He decided to stay home from college for a semester to film alongside Meredith, 49, and help her through her separation from his father, Seth.
“I was beyond shocked. It’s so heartwarming to know that people are supportive of me,” Brooks recently told Page Six Style of his newfound fan base.
“I mean, I came home to support my mom during her separation and work on developing my brand further — and the show is ‘The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,’ it’s not ‘The Real 20-Year-Old College Student,'” he laughed. “So I’m incredibly grateful for each and every individual supporting me, and I send my love and support back.”
Brooks’ up-and-coming design career took center stage on Wednesday night’s episode of “RHOSLC” as he and Meredith prepared for his debut fashion show during the inaugural Park City Fashion Week, which took place in 2019. Brooks was the youngest designer to have a show during the event.
“To be a part of the first-ever Park City Fashion Week — it’s incredible to be a part of any fashion show, but to be able to have that opportunity to be a part of history was just beyond,” Brooks said of the experience.
“Honestly, I did not realize how much goes into a fashion show; it was an incredible learning experience for me. I thought all I had to do was show up and bring my clothing and fit everyone and make sure my clothing looked great,” he continued.
“I didn’t realize this whole casting process. I didn’t realize that I had to provide footwear, down to socks. It was just really cool to get to see how a fashion show works.”
Brooks’ signature design is a simple black tracksuit with a side stripe bearing his name.
“I was definitely inspired to create a universal brand that could be appealing to everybody,” he explained. “Right now, my main priority in fashion is comfort. So aside from my clothing being comfortable to wear, I want people to feel comfortable in it. The tracksuit isn’t just for one body. It’s really genderless and it’s for everyone.”
Brooks noted that he “always had an interest in fashion,” partly thanks to his mother Meredith’s career as an award-winning celebrity jewelry designer; her pieces have been worn by the likes of Rihanna, Charlize Theron and Courteney Cox.
“I remember when I first started my brand, my mom always told me to keep it authentic and true to myself in order for it to be successful,” he told us. “She’s been so incredibly supportive. I mean, I call her probably 25 times a day with a million business questions, and somehow she’ll always answer my call and knows the answer to exactly what I need.”
While Meredith has remained hands-off in the design department, she did help her son when it came to creating his website and business strategy.
Brooks is currently living with his brother Reid, 23, in New York. They plan to quarantine with their parents and sister Chloe for Christmas, but in the meantime, they are watching the Bravo series together — remotely.
“It’s usually a multiple-person phone call between my mom, my sister and I, and maybe my dad is on it or sometimes my grandma. And we just kind of talk about the show as it’s airing,” he said.
“It’s funny because my mom live-tweets a lot of the time during the episodes and she’ll just like, say what she wants to live-tweet.”
And while Brooks said it’s been “really fun” to watch the episodes as they air, it’s not always easy seeing your family’s life play out onscreen.
“At times I feel misunderstood because these are snippets of events that take place over the course of several hours. And watching my parents’ separation was very difficult, because it was an emotional thing for my family. But I am very excited to see the fashion show from an outsider’s perspective,” he said.
“And I’m just very proud of my mom. It’s incredible to see how she is such a strong woman and just the way she holds herself; there’s no one in the world like her.”
Brooks’ third clothing drop will be released in time for the holidays via his website."
POTOMAC

• How ‘RHOP’ star Gizelle Bryant is getting ready for the holidays (Page Six)

"Gizelle Bryant is already rocking around the Christmas tree.
As the “Real Housewives of Potomac” star, 50, recently told Page Six she’s going all on the decorations during this unique holiday season.
“My house, you can’t see from the street at all, and my kids are like, ‘Well this year, we need to decorate the outside of the house,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, no one can see it,’ but we’re going to decorate more on the inside, we’re going to get totally into it,” Bryant said. “This house is going to transform into the holiday spirit.”
In addition to perfecting the holiday trimmings with twin 14-year-old daughters Angel and Adore and 16-year-old Grace — all of whom she shares with her ex-turned-beau Jamal Bryant — Bryant is also channeling her inner baker as part of web series Baileys Holiday Baking Club, for which she crafted a chocolate fig pie.
“I’m so excited to be part of the Bailey’s Holiday Baking Club this year,” Bryant said. “No, I’m not an expert baker, but, I had so much fun just taking my little bit of skills that I had and combining it with a baker.”
Savoring a pie isn’t the only item on Bryant’s wish list this year.
“Maybe a beautiful bracelet,” the Bravo star added. “A beautiful piece of jewelry is always nice to have.”

• Monique Samuels Just Launched Her Own Line of Essential Oils (Monique Samuels Instagram/Bravo)

"Monique Samuels recently debuted her very own line of essential oils called Mila Eve Essentials.
Focusing on self-care products, the line embodies Monique's holistic approach to healthy living with a wide collection of natural essential oils, bath salts, and diffusers. The products include natural oils derived from ingredients like lavender, almond, and tea tree with singles bottles retailing for $18 and kits for up to $190.
"Mila Eve Essentials products are designed with your mind, body, and soul in mind," the company stated on its Instagram profile. "We eliminate harsh ingredients and replace them with essential oils and other natural elements that provide a variety of wonderful benefits."
Monique's products became available for pre-order on December 15, and they already appear to be a hit. "Omg y’all my store opened at 5am today and I’ve been getting orders like CRAZY ever since!!!!" she shared in an Instagram post on Tuesday. "The support is INCREDIBLE!!!! You have NO idea how this makes me feel! Thank you all for taking the milaeveessentials journey with me!"
BEVERLY HILLS

• What Kathy Hilton Learned About Style From Paris and Nicky (Christian Allaire for Vogue)

"The Hilton sisters, Paris Hilton and Nicky Hilton Rothschild, are indisputable fashion icons. You can’t think of the early aughts without thinking of them, their rainbow Louis Vuitton bags and bedazzled Juicy Couture tracksuits (which are back, by the way). But their die-hard love of fashion didn’t come out of nowhere. Their mother, Kathy Hilton, is just as big of a fashion fan as they are. The trio’s inimitable family style has been captured in a brand-new Valentino campaign, highlighting the label’s Roman Stud handbag and resort 2021 collection.
The campaign imagery was shot last week at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, and the shoot proved to be a memorable one, says Kathy. “We used to live there; it’s our home away from home,” she says. “It was really special, especially now—I don’t get to see the girls that often. They’re both busy working, and Nicky has her two little girls.” The rare get-together, or rather, glitzy photo shoot, provided an opportunity for Kathy to see her two daughters in work mode as established adults. “It’s been a long time since we’ve done a photo shoot together,” she says. “They were [real pros] telling me what to do: ‘Put your leg here; put your hand on your hip.’ It’s interesting to see the girls not fighting over the clothes!”
Kathy remembers her daughters’ early love for fashion fondly. “I used to bring them to the fashion shows in Paris when they were, like, 13 and 15,” she says. “I think that’s where they really got a taste and started to see all these beautiful things. And then the designers started to send them things. We had a huge entryway filled with racks of clothes.” Paris, in particular, had an experimental flair. “Paris could go to Patricia Field, find a pair of pants or a skirt, and then she would pair it with one of my good jackets,” Kathy says. “She was quite the character in the day.”
While they all have their own tastes, borrowing from each other’s closets is all but a family tradition. “They make themselves very at home in the closet,” says Kathy, adding that her handbags and jewelry are a particular hit with her daughters. Paris also recently borrowed one of her pink and white Chanel suits. “I have kept a lot of beautiful things, including some gorgeous Valentino from the ’90s,” Kathy says. “Nicky actually wore one of them to the Met ball [in 2001]. It was a gorgeous yellow beaded skirt with a chiffon top, and it was to the knee, which was unusual for the Met ball. And she borrowed one of my very good necklaces. I didn’t even know until I saw the pictures!”
These days, they give fashion advice freely to each other. “I don’t buy anything, and they don’t, unless we all agree on it,” Kathy says. “We’ll share ideas—they’ll ask me and I’ll ask them.” The number one fashion rule she’s instilled in her daughters is, “You don’t have to put on everything in the closet,” she says. As for what her daughters have taught her? “I learned about Juicy Couture from them,” she says, adding that she still has four of the beloved tracksuits today. “They both have their own style, and it’s so interesting to just take little notes here and there.”

• Garcelle Beauvais Reveals the Golden, Glowing Christmas Tree in Her L.A. Home (Garcelle Beauvais Instagram/Bravo)

ATLANTA

• Drew Sidora Is "All Booted Up" in an Edgy, Leather-Filled Ensemble (Drew Sidora Instagram/Bravo)
• Photo of some of the Atlanta ladies filming for S13 (The Peach Report Twitter)

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update August 17, 2020
Notes by mr_tyler_durden and Daily Update Team
Note: We may need to paraphrase, but the notes are accurate
Watch here:

• Youtube: Update (YT Channel)
• Facebook: Update (FB Page)

Headlines

• 39,691 Cases (+376), 818 Deaths (+5)
• New Cases by County: 124x Jefferson, 51x Fayette, 20x Madison, 17x Warren, 9x Oldham, 7x Campbell, 6x Christian, 6x Franklin, 6x Kenton, 6x Scott, 5x Clay, 5x Pulaski, 5x Rockcastle, 4x Calloway, 4x Logan, 4x McCracken, 4x Perry, 4x Shelby, 3x Boone, 3x Boyle, 3x Clinton, 3x Henderson, 3x Hickman, 3x Leslie, 3x Magoffin, 3x Monroe, 3x Muhlenberg, 3x Todd, 2x Anderson, 2x Barren, 2x Bell, 2x Bourbon, 2x Caldwell, 2x Clark, 2x Graves, 2x Greenup, 2x Hardin, 2x Harlan, 2x Jackson, 2x Jessamine, 2x Lewis, 2x Lincoln, 2x Marion, 2x Montgomery, 2x Nelson, 2x Spencer, 2x Taylor, 2x Wayne, 2x Webster, 1x Allen, 1x Boyd, 1x Bullitt, 1x Fulton, 1x Garrard, 1x Henry, 1x Hopkins, 1x Letcher, 1x Martin, 1x Mason, 1x McCreary, 1x Mercer, 1x Russell, 1x Trigg, 1x Union, 1x Wolfe, 1x Woodford
• New deaths by county: 84 M Boyd, 75 F Oldham, 63 M Henry, 91 M Calloway, 87 F Franklin
• The dept for public health is partnering with UK healthcare to provide free, it is free, drive up testing for the community, at 2 sites on campus beginning August 24. To facilitate the testing UK is going to continue its partnership that it has with Wild Health, the Lexington company that is doing their student testing. One site for community testing will be in the new parking lot on College Way near the UK Motor Pool. The other site will be on the grounds of Eastern State hospital. All of it is by appointment: you have to go to http://lexington.wildhealth.com and the reason you have to do these sign ups is this is where they collect your information, this is where they give you your results.
• Remember we still have drive thru testing locations in Louisville that’s a partnership with UofL. You can sign up for that also on our website. This shows you the three locations One’s in Bullitt Co., outside of Jefferson, that are operating. We want to make sure that people use those. Testing is free. We also have our NKY partnership with St. Elizabeth. These are all partnerships directly with the state. Two locations for drive thru locations in Northern Kentucky, which has been hit pretty hard. Finally, we have testing locations, more than 200, all over the state. This is the last Louisville one, the one that we are doing Norton Healthcare.
• Dr. Stack: Even so, there is a lot of data on our website http://kycovid19.ky.gov/. If you scroll down a little bit, you’ll see those bars there’s a desktop dashboard, and a mobile dashboard. The desktop has much more information than the mobile just because the platform on the phone is not big enough. I encourage you to go there, and of course on our website, that is one screenshot I took , one rectangle out of it, there’s all types of other data, reports, and other information. If this is important to you to look at that, there is a lot of stuff there, we’re keep working to make it better.
• Senate Majority leader sent a letter, suggesting that you use the federal unemployment dollars set aside by the president, we’ve also seen statements this afternoon by the KY house and senate leadership suggesting that you do that. Will you use that money and what is your thought on those comments? -- Apparently under new guidance we can get at least 300 of the 400 for additional UI for individuals to help them out without the state doing a part that made it unworkable. I will say that if the federal government is going to provide $300 and it doesn’t create an unworkable situation for the State, yeah, we’re going to take it and get it to the people who need it.
• What’s the status of people getting their benefits? Are we exploring opening offices that were closed by the previous administration? -- We are making progress, steady progress, it’s still those last letters that have to be sent out, every single week, working as fast as we can to get those out. So the progress is steady but it’s too slow. It’s not our employees, it’s just the number of people that are waiting. We do intend to open up regional offices, but we have to get as caught up as we can before doing it. Yes, once we’ve caught up, or once we’re close and moving into the future, we need regional offices, but if we were to pull too many resources right now, we wouldn’t get through those people that have been waiting for far too long and they are a priority.
• Are you concerned that schools will not report their cases? -- Let me start with I have a concern that some of the districts that are going back or we think are going back are in some of the hardest hit areas, as defined by the White House, not by me. I worry that rationalization occurs to try to find different reasons why that should happen when the White House has you in a RED, a really dangerous place, and what that's saying is the White House and us and the state believe that no matter how good your plan is, it can’t work at the level of the virus right now. Now, when you make a decision to go on and do that (reopen schools), your commitment might be as such that it pushes you one way or the other. I just want to make sure that everybody gets accurate information. I want to make sure that even if it’s on the sports teams- that it’s reported to the rest of the student body, and this is just so personal. As a parent, I can’t imagine the betrayal I would feel if my son or daughter’s school had positive tests but didn't tell me as a parent, whether it was in their grade or not. And I believe that every parent, no matter what they think is the right decision right now, viscerally feels the way I do right now. That they should at least have all the information. That means as a state government, we gotta set up the system that provides it. I think if we do it we can balance that private health piece, and the right to know.
• Slides from Update

Summarized (Full) Notes

• Good afternoon everybody, we are continuing to show our school spirit. On one of the first days I wore one of these for our High Schools it was Frankfort Independent. Today, turnabout’s fair play , their big rival, Western Hills right here in Frankfort. This type of school spirit, this type of putting some identity on facial coverings I think is one reason why we are seeing more of them being worn across Kentucky. In fact other groups are coming together too, even youth baseball . This is the E-town Shock, sent to me by Xander Savoy (sp?), a 9-year-old, and Kaden Underwood (sp?), also a 9-year-old. Again we are just trying to make sure we are doing the right things, promoting the right things in everything we do, and staying safe. We ultimately want to get back to all of our kids being in school, save our economy, and save lives. Wearing one of these, being proud of wearing one of these, making sure you do it every time you’re within six feet of people is what we got to do.
• I came across this quote the other day, and I think it’s imperative. It really tells us where we are. “A person’s true character is often revealed in times of crisis or temptation. Make sure you have what it takes to be your best in such times.” We are certainly in a time of crisis and it’s one where our character and how we respond has never been more important. If crisis shows our character, is it one that yells at the checkout clerk that tells us we have to be wearing a facial covering to check out? Is it one when we disagree with each other, trying to make the best decisions we can, we revert to name calling? Is it one where if someone is for something we are against it just “because”? Or is it one where we put the health and lives of our neighbors above our personal interests. One where we show resiliency, that no matter what this virus gives us, we can take it, we can do what it takes to protect one another. Is this a time where our character shows more kindness and empathy to one another than ever before, knowing that we are all going through something very difficult. In many ways, I wish my grandparents were here today to talk, either, on my dad’s side about the great depression or on my mom’s side about being in Europe during WW2 for over a year. About the sacrifices and the duration of the sacrifices those generations made. We saw some of the best in the character of our American people during those times. The sacrifice, I would tell you, I believe, we all believe was greater than what’s being asked right now. So what does this crisis say about our character as Kentuckians. Let’s make sure we show our very best and not our very worst. I think we saw the best last Friday when a Demogratic Governor and a Republican AG were able to not only come together for a safe election plan but were able to do it in a positive and constructive way where politics were not an issue. Where we were simply trying to do the right thing. I think the best is when you see groups like a baseball team coming together and making sure their fans are wearing masks and giving them an opportunity to show a little bit of pride. When I was coming home from Harrodsburg on Saturday night, later than I would have liked because a ballgame lasted longer than I ever thought it could, I saw 12 green lights along highway 127 showing that even this many months in, we are still showing a lot of character about how much we care about each other. Character is gonna be really important over the next couple of months. On Sept 28, I not only hope, I expect we will be able to restart in person classes. When that happens our character is going to be tested too. When there is a positive test, are we clear with the community? Do we make sure that parents, even outside of that age group, that grade, know so that they can make their decisions? Are we transparent in ensuring that if one of our sports teams is having issues that we are not exposing others out there. On that September 28th, if we get our positivity rate down by then, when we get our total case number down there, because we will, we're gonna do that for our kids. Will we be ready to be transparent and honest with one another to ensure, with more common contacts than ever before? Remember, when the flu gets really bad, what do they do? They shut down schools because of the ability of viruses to spread. Are we gonna be able to be sure we do the right thing and not at that point, try to argue even against our own plans and the way we respond to outbreaks. Let’s make sure that we’re ready to respond with character in each and every thing that we face. And let me just say that with the Democratic national convention starting tonight and the Republican National Convention coming shortly thereafter, and the silly season that is going to be a November Presidential election, let’s make sure in the midst of COVID, we share character, too, in how we talk to one another, no matter what’s going on out there. We are one Kentucky, we are one commonwealth, at a time when our people are going through so much, let’s make sure that we don’t make someone else's day harder. Let’s show the character that I believe we have in our core.
• Ok, let’s start off with some good news tonight. Western KY CARES Act update: Today we’re highlighting the hard work of our local governments that they are doing each and every day to battle COVID-19. I can’t thank them enough for their good decisions that they have made, the good effort they have put into their community, and my hope is that everywhere we continue to ensure that everybody is wearing a mask, that we’re standing six feet apart, they whatever activities we’ve got going on are actually following the guidelines because good guidelines and good plans don’t work unless there is enforcement. Let’s make sure we continue to make good decisions on a local level.
• We set aside $300M in CARES Act funding for local governments with expenses related to COVID-19 to be administered by our department for local government. We have announced a number of these reimbursements, today we are announcing, for Western KY, $14M to 23 local governments, they include the counties of Barren, Christian, Logan, Meade, Menifee, Ohio, Simpson, Webster and the municipalities of Arlington, Benton, Bowling Green, Brownsville, Clarkson, Clay, Elizabethtown, Franklin, Hodgenville, Horse Cave, Glasgow, Murray, Tompkinsville, and Uniontown. The funding will be used to reimbursed payroll expenses for public safety officials, PPE, cleaning and sanitizing supplies, teleworking, and other expenses that were necessary to battle this virus. Since the application has been released, we’ve approved more than $66M in reimbursement to 200 applicants- we need more out there, we still have a number of counties and cities that haven’t applied for reimbursement. We need you to do so. We actually believe there may be a little money left over in this initial $300M if it is available and we want to deploy it if it’s not applied for by those communities that have more in their expenses. Again, more dollars flowing into our communities.
• Testing, excited that we are now opening up our drive through testing in Lexington that we are going to be running with University of Kentucky. It’s been a tough year for every Kentucky family. And it’s been challenging for our students, who have missed so much. Whether it’s those college students returning right now, or getting our students back in the classroom, making sure we have available easy testing is critical. Dr. Stack is going to talk in a little bit about how we’re the only state that hasn’t seen a decrease in our testing over the last several weeks. That is so important because it means we’re operating under accurate data, at least more accurate data in the decisions we make. We’ve seen big drop offs in other places. I believe one of the reasons we haven’t here is because we continue to provide so many options, but these drive-thrus are very important. The dept for public health is partnering with UK healthcare to provide free, it is free, drive up testing for the community, at 2 sites on campus beginning August 24. To facilitate the testing UK is going to continue its partnership that it has with Wild Health, the Lexington company that is doing their student testing. One site for community testing will be in the new parking lot on College Way near the UK Motor Pool. The other site will be on the grounds of Eastern State hospital. All of it is by appointment: you have to go to http://lexington.wildhealth.com and the reason you have to do these sign ups is this is where they collect your information, this is where they give you your results. This is one of the important parts of getting your results faster. UK is already testing all of their students returning on campus, but this is going to help not just the Lexington community, but the broader state. We saw with the last drive thru testing at BCTC that we’re serving a large part of the state based on the access to I-64 and I-75.
• Remember we still have drive thru testing locations in Louisville that’s a partnership with UofL. You can sign up for that also on our website. This shows you the three locations One’s in Bullitt Co., outside of Jefferson, that are operating. We want to make sure that people use those. Testing is free. We also have our NKY partnership with St. Elizabeth. These are all partnerships directly with the state. Two locations for drive thru locations in Northern Kentucky, which has been hit pretty hard. Finally, we have testing locations, more than 200, all over the state. This is the last Louisville one, the one that we are doing Norton Healthcare. I believe what they would tell you is that without this additional assistance, we are seeing a real scarcity of testing resources. I believe that in KY we are in a better place with our local partnership, but I will warn everybody we are starting to see the market tightening both with testing supplies, which are at a very difficult level, and PPE, it’s getting harder to get certain items of PPE.
• Let’s talk about where we are right now since we finished last week. Remember, this gives you to where we started in all of this, when there wasn’t a lot of testing, to when we did Healthy at Home- Where we stopped a growth that they were worried all over the country would overwhelm our healthcare systems. It did in NY, it did in Louisiana, it did in some other places, what we saw was lost life at a level that in modern society we don’t ever want to see especially with our great healthcare system. I think what we saw in NY compared to what we see now shows that if you can keep the hospitalization and ICU down we can provide extraordinary care that saves people. I have a friend in NKY that is now off a ventilator. That we didn’t know wouldn’t make it back, and still has a way to go- We have great healthcare in this state, expansion of medicare is one of the reasons. If we can make sure that we never end up in that NY or now TX, AZ, FL situation we can protect our people so much better. So you see when you move almost to the beginning of July, we began what would have been an exponential increase. We were headed the way TX, FL, AZ, places where they were ordering caskets by the truckload- that came from one of the producers of them. Something we did not want to be so we put our masking order in effect, we asked for 2 weeks of sacrifice from our restaurants and other entities. What we saw when we put those in place, a start of a plateau. Last week we did have our largest week that we did have, and I think a part of that is due to at least a couple hundred tests that would have been the week before. We at least believe what we are seeing right now is I hope a new plateau, that will range up and down, but still we have to recognize that last week with 4,333 positive tests was our largest week yet. Now, plateauing is better than increasing, but what we saw with reopening, we will be better off if we can get a true decrease in the overall numbers and we certainly have to have a decrease in our positivity rate to make it safe to do other things. Positivity rate when you look at it, we are going to announce here in a minute that today’s is 5.8%. Higher than we’d like, it’s really been around that area since the 9th of August. Again, that suggests that we have slowed what was a very, very dangerous place that was going to lead to some really bad outcomes. We’re still with this level of cases going to have some really bad outcomes. But We were headed in a much worse direction. Our battle now is to start pushing that positivity rate down, by doing the right things. By making sure we are smart. I pray 4,333 cases regardless of what the positivity rate is in the future, I pray that that will be the largest number of cases that we have and that this is the top of where our “St. Louis vs Philadelphia” will be. That’s why I wanna make sure that we make smart decisions if we are truly at the apex and hopefully we will see a decrease from here. I’m gonna ask Dr. Stack to come up and give his analysis of where we are right now and then give today’s report and open it up for questions.
• Dr. Stack takes over:
• Thank you, Governor. Real quickly, I’m going to go over the governor’s last slide. He’s already talked about this and I’ve shown this before, when we started this back in March we were exponentially doubling, we were climbing, and we were getting more quick as we climbed. Then, we had that two or three month plateau. So you can see when we report this stuff, there's a little bit of educated judgement that goes into this. I reported that as a plateau, and I had to make a decision week-to-week. When I talk with the governor, and I give him this impression of the data, which is a lot of moving pieces, it turns out in hindsight I was correct. If you look, it was just oscillating in a fairly narrow range. We started to climb again, we started to climb briskly. You see those bars were jumping much larger than the ones to the left. This is when I keep saying it’s hard to get our heads around what exponential growth looks like. It’s when you start to go up, up, up and each next leap is much larger than the one before it. It’s the kind of thing that when you get out of control, when things start to get bad, when you recognize things are getting a little tight, you're in trouble already. If you shut the floodgates, the flood keeps coming for another two months is what we have to not get to. When we put the mask mandate, you can see, the 10th, that’s down there on the left of the graph, you see the mask plateau, when we put the mandate in place, we increased for another week, which is what you’d expect because there was a reservoir of people who were exposed and then after that we plateaued. Now the question is, will we be able to tip that plateau down? These steps work, I know we ask you to trust us a lot with this stuff, because this is a lot moving pieces, and I want to go into data here. I am very grateful to the governor for letting me use this time in a press conference to show this because I want people to understand what we’re dealing with and why this is both important and complicated. In my slides, I want to take you on a journey from the very end of April to the left. Remember, we started at the beginning of March. In the beginning of March, the public health lab could do very few tests compared to where we are now. At the end of April, we began to scale up our partnership with Gravity, and we have a couple of academic labs who were doing tests, our Public Health labs were doing tests. You see how small those bars are, doing less than 10,000 total tests in a whole week. Then you see we made dramatic progress in May. We rapidly built capacity. I don't know why that one week dipped in the middle there, but essentially, it could have been a data point problem for that week. Essentially, once we got up to a level we have now, slowly began to increase again. Test supplies are getting tight again,the demand for the test is growing more quickly than the resources to provide the tests. So we’re likely to be at some plateau for a while, but it’s going to be a challenge to maintain that plateau because a lot of other states are going to complete now, more, to get these resources. We’re gonna work really hard to keep access to that, if we keep that it’s just under 60K tests a week on average. That's about 4.7% of the total population of KY that we’d be testing. Even if you take out antibody tests and some other things, we are still solidly over 4%, the White House’s initial guidelines were over 2%. So I think we’re doing a really good job in KY, even though in the heat of the moment it doesn’t feel that way. I have to make some points, and this is a message, and I’ll actually ask the reporters to pick up on this one, we use every lever we can to get this out. We get data from two main sources, clinicians and laboratories, for the tests, both have a legal obligation to report this data. There were laws in place even before COVID-19, for the Republic Reporting of Communicable Disease Test Results. And COVID-19 falls under that law- this is not a new law, this has been there for a long time. Clinicians have to report the tests they provide that are positive. So if you're a clinician and you see a patient and you do an evaluation and the patient tests positive for the disease, for COVID-19, you have to report, under law, a PUI form, which is a CDC form, and a EPID 200 which is a state form. Those are for the patients you treat who are positive. There are letters on the website https://kycovid19.ky.gov, right underneath “Healthcare Providers”. This letter and the lab letter are both right there at the top. There’s active hyperlinks that take you straight to the forms you have to complete. Laboratories must also report their data, they have more data points they have to report for the test itself. Here's the thing. If you’re doing POC testing at an urgent treatment center, nursing home, school or something else, you are a lab and must report these results. If you don’t report these results, we don’t find all the positive patients so we can’t do public health interventions and we can’t show accurate data. I wanna give you just an example for how complicated this is, so I just told you that clinicians have to report and labs have to report. Some clinicians are both clinicians and labs, so you have both obligations. Now we get the data in a lot of different ways: On the left side it’s a lot of people involved, and very labor intensive. We get faxes or electronic faxes. That’s manual. That means some human being has to read that and type it into a system so it can be used in a spreadsheet. We get flat files, I looked that up, I had to google that, that’s something that IBM made 30 years ago, where you take a spreadsheet and you strip out all the formatting, and it’s just columns and rows of data. You have to get those in a certain format, then someone still has to do a manual process to import that into a data system. That is done at a local and state level, lots of people, manual intensive, and there are a lot of labs that report that way. Because like I said, they are not all traditional labs, some of them are nursing homes or other places. That information then gets into NEDSS. NEDSS is the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System. Neds was created in 2003, it’s a 17-year old data system. I want you to think back, the first iPhone didn’t come out till 2007, I want you to think back to 2003 and what kind of technology you were using then. What your cell phone looked like, a flip-phone if you were lucky, probably something worse if not. That’s the level of technology there, in 26 states and territories that use that data system, we are one of them. There’s not a lot of options in there, there’s the NEDSS system, a private system, or you build your own. All of them have their own challenges. That, we had the data problem last week, was where the problem was, another subroutine or another program that hasn't been updated since 2018, which is also decades old, had a fatal flaw in it and had to troubleshoot with the federal government. It’s working now, but I’m talking about technology systems that are 20 years old essentially trying to deal with mass volumes of data in real time and do things they weren’t designed to do. Labcorp and Quest only report through that system, that's how we get their information, and they’re the biggest two national labs. And KHIE, Kentucky Health and Information Exchange- takes electronic data from labs- We want more of this, and I have mandated in the state of Kentucky, every lab is required to onboard into KHIE if you are reporting a sufficient number of laboratory tests. Because if we do that, then that data goes straight into NEDSS and we get it in a way we can manipulate in a spreadsheet. We can do things, if we had everyone in KHIE- like have a real time dashboard on a website that auto and continuously populates data and metrics- The kinda stuff that you want, that we also want. There’s all these moving pieces and if you’re a tiny lab only doing 8 POC tests a day you don’t have the economic resources and you’re not going to be about to do the KHIE route. We’re going to continue to have a multisource input system which continues to be a challenge. I don’t say that to make excuses, I say it to describe the reality we face. I accept the accountability for the quality of data we provide to public health, it’s just not an easy thing to do and there’s an army of human beings pulling this together everyday. Even so, there is a lot of data on our website http://kycovid19.ky.gov/. If you scroll down a little bit, you’ll see those bars there’s a desktop dashboard, and a mobile dashboard. The desktop has much more information than the mobile just because the platform on the phone is not big enough. If you click on the top right corner, there’s like a little expand thing, it will make the tab bigger and some of them will reveal more information. If you are interested in this stuff, I encourage you to go there, and of course on our website, that is one screenshot I took , one rectangle out of it, there’s all types of other data, reports, and other information. If this is important to you to look at that, there is a lot of stuff there, we’re keep working to make it better. And I think tomorrow I'll be back to talk about how we use this in reporting and why we do that. Come back for Chapter 2 tomorrow. Thank you governor.
• Governor takes over
• Can you put back up the “testing is complicated” slide. So I think in the midst of the pandemic, It’s important for us to every now and then to get a chuckle, and so I hope dr. Stack will forgive me for this, because I did this last week. So Virginia, let’s learn a little sign language: “Into the weeds” . How about “Deep into the weeds”. . This is important and we’ve been talking about this. We have people that are putting together some of the best data in the country but what we are also doing is we are admitting to you some of the limitations are. We are admitting to you where the human error is and the moment we find out something that we have to fix, we tell you right off. You are not seeing that same kind of thing necessarily in every other state but I believe we are more transparent, providing more data than just about anywhere else in the United states. That’s thanks to the really good work from the Department for Public Health, it’s good work from our public health departments, it’s good work all the way around. It’s gonna be more important than ever as we move forward. Today’s report.
• Positive cases today: 376 new cases of COVID 19. That’s about in line with the last several weeks and what we had seen on Monday.
• Probable cases: 2,867
• Total confirmed cases: 39,69
• Children Under 18: 54
• New cases by county: 124x Jefferson, 51x Fayette, 20x Madison, 17x Warren, 9x Oldham, 7x Campbell, 6x Christian, 6x Franklin, 6x Kenton, 6x Scott, 5x Clay, 5x Pulaski, 5x Rockcastle, 4x Calloway, 4x Logan, 4x McCracken, 4x Perry, 4x Shelby, 3x Boone, 3x Boyle, 3x Clinton, 3x Henderson, 3x Hickman, 3x Leslie, 3x Magoffin, 3x Monroe, 3x Muhlenberg, 3x Todd, 2x Anderson, 2x Barren, 2x Bell, 2x Bourbon, 2x Caldwell, 2x Clark, 2x Graves, 2x Greenup, 2x Hardin, 2x Harlan, 2x Jackson, 2x Jessamine, 2x Lewis, 2x Lincoln, 2x Marion, 2x Montgomery, 2x Nelson, 2x Spencer, 2x Taylor, 2x Wayne, 2x Webster, 1x Allen, 1x Boyd, 1x Bullitt, 1x Fulton, 1x Garrard, 1x Henry, 1x Hopkins, 1x Letcher, 1x Martin, 1x Mason, 1x McCreary, 1x Mercer, 1x Russell, 1x Trigg, 1x Union, 1x Wolfe, 1x Woodford
• When we look at where these cases are, again it’s always a low number on Mondays, with the labs closed on Sundays. In Madison Co, there are two of these that were high school-aged kids. Even just based on that today, when they might have been going back today or next Monday to school, I think the right decision was made, even if it was a hard one. We have 17 new cases in Warren County, including a 16 year-old, presumably a high school student. We have had so many individuals under the age of 18 in Warren County test positive. This is the number 2 county that the White House believes they have over a 10% positivity rate. I hope and pray that Warren County will do the work just like we are, wearing these facial coverings and making good decisions to make sure that we are wise, that we are promoting public health and safety.
• Total tests conducted: 760,022 (PCR: 713,949, Serology: 45,353) --- Every now and then I try to move back to late March when we didn't know if we were ever gonna be able to test at remotely 4% or hit that 60K number a week.
• Positivity Rate: 5.8% - Covid positivity rate is back up a little. Even if we are going to plateau on our overall numbers, we need to see the positivity rate go down. There are other states that I was talking to today, they have been through far worse than we have and are now on the decline, we wanna see that with our positivity rate.
• Total hospitalized: 4,215
• Currently hospitalized: 563
• Total in ICU: 1,310
• Currently in ICU: 136
• On a ventilator: 80
• Total recovered: 9,158
• New deaths today: 5- So those green lights I saw on Hwy 127 on Saturday night, thank you. I don’t need them half as much as these families need them, but thank you. Thank you for having the strength and perseverance to keep going, to not change it out, to not let anything you agree or disagree with get in the way of your compassion for other Kentuckians. We are still being tested about our kindness and about our character, and I thank you for rising to that occasion.
• Total Deaths: 818
• New deaths by county: 84 M Boyd, 75 F Oldham, 63 M Henry, 91 M Calloway, 87 F Franklin
• All losses are a loss for Kentucky. Let’s light those houses up green and let’s ring those bells at 10am. This is a reminder that we are thinking of the Kentuckians we’ve lost, their families, and their communities. It’s the color of compassion and renewal as their souls move from their bodies to a better place.
• New deaths by county:
• Racial breakdown of all cases: 78.81% Caucasian, 12.49% Black or African-American, 2.12% Asian, 5.98% Multiracial
• Ethnicity breakdown of all cases: 87.02% non-Hispanic and 12.98% Hispanic
• Racial breakdown of all deaths: 81.56% Caucasian, 14.32% Black or African-American, 1.46% Asian, 2.65% Multiracial
• Ethnicity breakdown of all deaths: 96.25% non-Hispanic and 3.76% Hispanic

(continued in stickied comment)

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update May 26, 2020
I know it's a little later today, it was a big update and we wanted to get Andy's comments on Sunday down in full.
Notes by mr_tyler_durden and Daily Update Team
Note: We may need to paraphrase, but the notes are accurate
Watch here:

• Youtube: Update (YT Channel)
• Facebook: Update (FB Page)

Headlines

• 8,951 Cases (+387, 24th: +141, 25th: +122, 26th: +117), 394 Deaths (+3)
• New cases by county: 146x Jefferson, 41x Shelby, 30x Warren, 26x Fayette, 10x Kenton, 10x Logan, 9x Allen, 8x Ohio, 7x Butler, 6x Henderson, 5x Boone, 5x Oldham, 5x Simpson, 4x Henry, 4x Jessamine, 3x Clay, 3x Daviess, 3x Grant, 3x Grayson, 3x Muhlenberg, 2x Boyle, 2x Campbell, 2x Edmonson, 2x Madison, 2x McCracken, 2x McLean, 1x Ballard, 1x Barren, 1x Bullitt, 1x Calloway, 1x Christian, 1x Clark, 1x Fleming, 1x Franklin, 1x Garrard, 1x Hancock, 1x Hardin, 1x Hart, 1x Hopkins, 1x Jackson, 1x Lawrence, 1x Mercer, 1x Monroe, 1x Montgomery, 1x Nelson, 1x Scott, 1x Spencer, 1x Todd, 1x Woodford, 1x Unknown
• New deaths by county: 72 F Jefferson, 85 F Adair, 63 M Allen
• We had a Memorial Day weekend where most were trying to do the right thing. Looking out for one another, and then we had what happened on the Capitol grounds this Sunday. I’ve written down some of my thoughts, how I feel. I've tried to be vulnerable and direct in these press conferences. So I wanted to make sure I was today as well. And thinking through this and having a little bit of time to think through this took me back to right after winning the governor’s election in November and realizing that life was going to change a whole lot. It wasn’t just my life that was going to change a whole lot, it was my entire family’s, and that I owe a greater duty to my kids than just about anyone on earth. [Read Beshear’s Full Letter below please- it’s a lot to post up in highlights]
• Dr. Stack: This is what happened at a bar in KY. They are clearly not the same family living in the same household. When you get together like this and have someone walking through with the infection talking loud, not even looking sick, spraying spit and saliva cause that’s what we do when we talk, as gross as it sounds. People shouting to be heard over the music, that’s how you spread this infection. And before you know it, that fun evening out turns into 2 weeks later, 40 or 50 people sick, who spread it further and further.
• Testing is a real positive: If you look at our testing location across KY, you will see something amazing. So, we need all our local leaders, everyone out there pushing people to get tested ... we need you to sign up and sign up right now.
• Richmond Jim reopened his gym a week earlier, because he deemed it essential, “most of his clients are depressed and have gained weight”. He will offer personal training and group classes (Beshear: Oh! Group classes, well that’s a way, sweating in a small area, that COVID is certainly going to spread). He says he has a plan for sanitizing and social distancing. Is it ok or is it too soon? -- You know what, we all gotta follow all the rules, I’m sure he will hear from some people. No, you have to wait until the time, everybody else has, and everyone else is trying to do it right.
• Slides from Update

Full Notes

• It is Tuesday afternoon at 5oclock, after a long Memorial Day weekend. This is when we get together every day to get an update on the coronavirus, about our job in defeating it, and remind ourselves, cause today maybe I need to say it as much as you do: We will get through this, and we will get through this together. One last time, (Andy signs in ASL) We will get through this, and we will get through this together.
• We are going to get through this together, we are resilient, we are strong, and for the most part over this weekend we showed that we can continue to do the right thing. Even with the ability to see more people, I know we all enjoyed that and all needed it, hopefully we will all feel a little better after it. We know that COVID-19 is still out there, it’s still deadly, it’s still dangerous, but if we can take Healthy at Work and put it in our muscle memory then moving forward we can successfully reopen this economy.
• Today what’s behind me looks a little different. I know we’ve been at this for over a couple of months and wanted you to see a few different parts of where we are in the capitol building. Today we are in the Supreme court of KY. The Supreme court occupies the entire second floor of this state capitol building. At the time of its construction it was held as the handsomest room in the building, and the justices are sure to tell me when they see me. The Supreme Court was created by constitutional amendment in 1975 and is the highest court for state law issues. This is where it’s decided. Up until then, the court of appeals was the highest court in the nation. Justice Scott E Reed was the first chief justice and served from 1976-77 but remained a justice until 1979. The current chief justice is John D. Minton Jr and has been the chief justice since 2008 and we appreciate him allowing us in this room. As you walk in, and you won’t see this tonight, there’s a bust of Justice Mack, who was a friend to a number of people in my administration, including me- he was the first African American to be appointed and elected to the supreme court in 2006. Behind me you will see where the Justices sit and hear cases. And if you think about where I’m standing right now, behind me is the podium where you argue to the judge. I remember being in here and being successful in arguing cases and I don’t remember any other time I was in here (Beshear is making a joke if it’s not clear). This is a special room and we appreciate the justices giving us this opportunity.
• Over the weekend, we saw a lot of really good behavior. Things that we need to make sure we can defeat COVID-19. In a moment Dr. Stack will talk to us about some of the things we should be doing differently. I really want to focus on the positive tonight. As my wife Britainy has said recently, “Love is always more powerful than hate, and the positives should always start over the negative.”
• Hashtags: #TeamKentucky #TogetherKY #Patriot #HealthyAtHome #HealthyAtWork
• Social Media: Photo of Mickey Salon employees in masks reopening the right way. And to all the salons, barbershop, retail, nail shops, all of you opening up the right way, thank you. Photo of a couple who are nurses, both on the front lines. Here is a couple that works together that give up their time together. They get less than 15 minutes together most days because they are helping others, that’s team KY right there. Photo of Brandon and Liza Dixon getting 420 care packages together for our soldiers- over the Memorial Day weekend. Over the last 3 years they were able to send 1,041 packages. Can our kindness and compassion be what’s driving us further, that just this pandemic? Photo of a rededication of a family grave site. Anitrea, we thank you for even in the hardest moments doing something differently and not spreading this virus. Photo of a church social distancing properly. Photo of Bowling Green Hot Rods, a single A baseball team lit up green.
• Today’s sign language comes from Britainy Beshear, she wanted today’s sign language to be “Love, not hate”. Virginia shows us how to sign, “Love, not hate,” in ASL.
• I will start by talking about what went on Sunday and after that we will hear from Eric Friedlander for an update on LTC.
• (Video Link) We had a Memorial Day weekend where most were trying to do the right thing. Looking out for one another, and then we had what happened on the Capitol grounds this Sunday. I’ve written down some of my thoughts, how I feel. I've tried to be vulnerable and direct in these press conferences. So I wanted to make sure I was today as well. And thinking through this and having a little bit of time to think through this took me back to right after winning the governor’s election in November and realizing that life was going to change a whole lot. It wasn’t just my life that was going to change a whole lot, it was my entire family’s, and that I owe a greater duty to my kids than just about anyone on earth. So I remember when Britainy and I, a couple weeks after, made a very difficult decision, and that decision was to move from the city that we had built on lives on, the community we had raised our family in, the only house my kids remember and we were going to move into the governor's mansion full time. We’d become the first family to live fulltime in the governor’s mansion in over 30 years. It was something the community told us they wanted. And that we thought could unify Kentuckians, a real family (he shrugs) With two kids we’re trying to raise, right there, right across the Capitol. Trying to steer us in the right direction. And I was worried about a number of things. How would living in a community where their dad was the governor impact my kids? What would it feel like to live in a house that people toured every week? One thing I never thought about and never questioned was their personal safety. While I thought and knew that kids from time to time would probably be mean to them because of who their dad was, I did not consider that they might be bullied or heckled by grown adults. Then Sunday happened. Sunday was a protest where my administration offered a drive up and a drive through permit. A way that’s safe, safe for everyone involved, where COVID-19 wouldn’t spread and in part, what they claimed that they wanted, at least in their lawsuit. But the organizers and even the attorney general disagreed. At the demonstration a right-wing militia group called the “three percenters” left the front of the capitol, and walked through and across all the barriers at the Governor’s Mansion that say it’s no longer open to the public. They walked and stood on the front porch, just a window pane away from where my kids play. The mob chanted and heckled. Thankfully my kids weren’t there that day. I want to remind you they are 9 and 10 years old. Unsatisfied, the mob retreated to an area several hundred yards away and hung a dummy with my face on it. It included the saying yelled by Lincoln's assassin. Think about it, a celebration of assassination on our Capitol Grounds. So let’s start by calling it what it was, and what it is: Actions aimed at creating fear and terror. Crossing over barriers, Standing on the other side of the glass from where I raise my kids and hanging me in an effigy? That is an action intended to use fear to get their way. This small group, way less than 3%, is trying to bully everyone else into doing what they want us to do. They didn’t get there alone. They had been embraced and emboldened by elected leaders that rallied with them weeks before. Standing in front of a radical militia group these elected officials claimed that people, including me, aren’t Christian and even told them that people wanted babies to be murdered. What do you think that was going to happen after throwing these claims at this group? Shouldn’t they have known what was going to happen? You cannot fan the flames and then condemn the fire. Those at the previous rally, those elected officials that embraced these individuals and that stood in front of people dressed in tactical gear and the rest and threw as much red meat as possible at them? They have to claim responsibility because they absolutely know what could have happened. And, they are in part responsible for what did happen. And all elected officials can no longer actively seek the support and cater to these groups like we have seen! Right is right and wrong is wrong. And you can’t wait until something nasty and horrible happens to then claim it’s wrong while you’ve catered support for certain groups, for votes and other reasons. And you certainly can’t write a column blaming the media, then saying it’s because no one is playing baseball. That’s wrong, and that writer knows it, and everybody else does too. Let’s also not ignore that the hanging was intended to send a message to others. One of intolerance and one of hate. I could never understand the depths of pain that this symbol causes to many of my fellow Kentuckians. But I can condemn it outright, as wrong, as vile, and as evil. So where does that leave us? I will not be afraid, I will not be bullied, and I will not back down. Not to them and not anybody else. Being Governor in this pandemic means I have a responsibility and it’s a heavy responsibility. To lead us through one of the most dangerous times where an invisible enemy is taking people that we care about and could do so much more damage than it has done thus far. I have to lead KY through a 100 year outbreak and I know people out there are with me. I see the signs of unity in the sidewalk chalk, the green lights, the bells, and the thousands of letters that I have received and almost thousands we receive every couple weeks. I owe it to the people of Kentucky, not to bow to terror, but to continue to do what is right for their families and for mine. And my faith, the same faith that some of those elected officials and that mob attacked, it tells me that doing the right thing is supposed to be hard. And I’m not going to say I didn’t think it could be this hard, listen it’s supposed to be hard. My faith means I need to face adversity without losing my values. I can’t act like this that try to take me off course and those that try to bully all of our families. So I will not be afraid. I will continue to do the right thing. And we will get through this together. Because it’s truly about all of us, each and every one of us counts and I’m going to make sure that I continue to represent the people of Kentucky with all of my heart and soul. Even with yesterday, I’ve never been prouder of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and if our unity scares a couple of people then our unity is something special and we will continue to do the right things with it.
• I’m going to take a minute, I think you can understand that, and I’m going to invite Secretary Friedlander up here to talk about some specific actions we have recently taken. Then you will hear from Dr Stack and I’ll be back to report the numbers.
• And you know, after everything that’s happened this weekend, do we still think it’s too much to wear a mask? To protect our fellow human being? I wear it to protect my family. I think other people should wear it to protect theirs.
• Secretary Friedlander takes over:
• Governor, I and we stand with you. Today I am going to talk about long term care. As I have talked about before, LTC facilities across the world, the nation, and this state continues to be a challenge. So we’ve started aggressive testing, over 11K staff and residents in facilities across Kentucky. In the next couple of days, we’re going to test a couple thousand more. When we test these facilities, we need to have a plan- and i think you’ve also heard the governor say “sometimes you can have a plan and the virus has its own plan”. We tested a facility- Nazareth Clifton in Louisville. We had many positives, we had about 39 positive residents and 20 positive staff. We did that full testing on Friday. On Saturday it came back (the numbers I just mentioned) were positive. So we went in with our strike team to help support them. What happened was those folks who were asymptomatic became symptomatic, particularly the staff. So as time went on, it became apparent that the facility was going to have a very tough time providing enough staff, so we began an aggressive plan to transfer residents out to local hospitals. And because we had a plan, because the task force has informed our actions, we were able to work with the local health department, to end the facility to make sure we were able to make the right decisions quickly and aggressively. And we did. Our local health partners, UofL, Norton’s Baptist, all agreed to accept some of the residents into their facilities. Yesterday, along with Louisville EMS, we were able to transfer effectively in those hospitals and stabilize that facility. This is why we have our task force. This is why we have our inspector general’s office, and the department of public health and local health departments, and our local partners, off and on the phone together as we work through these issues specifically. And that’s what we did this weekend, Memorial Day Weekend and we made sure we were protecting the residents, so their families were sure of what we were doing. We were protecting the facility and we were making the right decisions for everyone there. We will see this, probably, again in Kentucky and we will have plans in place and respond aggressively, that is what we do. So that gives you an idea of what happened, I believe we responded appropriately and I believe we are doing the best we can in Kentucky to make sure we are taking care of staff and residents of all the LTC facilities.
• Dr Stack takes over
• The decisions we have had to make have not been easy. Since we started this journey there has been a balancing act between what we know and don’t know and the consequences we know and the consequences we don’t know. We are facing an infection we cannot see , it’s an invisible enemy. People seldom give much credit for the harms you prevent but they know about the harms they have experienced and we have experienced harms. Some of us have lost loved ones or family members or had them in the hospital where they can’t visit because the need to protect the greater public has required us to take these steps. The economic carnage this has wrought is not just unique to this state. it’s state, the country, and it’s international.
• So there is no doubt this infection has taken a horrible toll on humanity. And unfortunately it will continue to take a toll. Until we find a vaccine or a treatment, we are left with old-school old fashioned public health measures, which we know work, but are difficult to implement. Because they require us to make sacrifices. Sacrifices that protect us, and the people that we love and care about, but also sacrifices that protect other people who rely on us. So you see us all walk up here with these masks, and I’ll tell you, I don’t like wearing them, it fogs up my glasses and it’s hard to breathe. Nobody likes wearing these. It’s important that we wear these. I’m going to show a video in a minute. I’m not here to guilt-trip or single out certain groups, entities, but I think we have to show what happened to do the right thing when we don’t follow the directions. The evidence is absolutely, overwhelmingly clear. A small number of large events or gatherings with 1-2 infected folks spreads this thing like wildfire. We’ve seen it at conventions, conferences, religious ceremonies, we see it when people get together for gatherings around the world. It’s true for what we have today, it was true for the Spanish Flu in 1918, and that’s the slide the Governor has been showing repeatedly- the Philadelphia vs St Louis. They threw a parade in Philadelphia and paid a horrible price. We know these things, history has taught us these things, and we see it happening in real time now around the world. So I will show you a little video clip. I said this, when I spoke last week at the press conference, when i did my KET interview: I was concerned that people would get out and get close together. Look, we want to see each other, we want to spend time with each other, I get that. But the clip I’m about to show, that happened in KY, is actually a small example of some of the bigger things I know you have seen in the media. People all getting together as if there is not a virus out there. This is what happened at a bar in KY. They are clearly not the same family living in the same household. When you get together like this and have someone walking through with the infection talking loud, not even looking sick, spraying spit and saliva cause that’s what we do when we talk, as gross as it sounds. People shouting to be heard over the music, that’s how you spread this infection. And before you know it, that fun evening out turns into 2 weeks later, 40 or 50 people sick, who spread it further and further. And so I carry folders, the contents vary from day to day, but in it today is the info on the long term care situation. The secretary told you, we had to mass evacuate 37 people into 6 hospitals in 4 hours. Any other time, that’s frontpage news, cause that wouldn’t happen unless it was a chlorine tank, !!!!!! So we had to evacuate 19 people from a different nursing home over a month ago and we have had to do this at smaller levels across the state. Secretary Brown has been up here talking about Green River Corrections and the measures we had to take in a prison. We have another report where we are tracking a whole sheet full of factories and plants, all sorts of employers where there are cases that could cause a large outbreak. I know it's beautiful weather, it’s spring time and people want to be with each other. But I’m just telling you, this is out there, it’s all over KY, and the virus is just waiting to get us and we know what we have to do. We need to stay away from each other and do a simple act like wearing a mask and social distancing. If we don’t all do these things we will pay a price. I’m not sensationalist about this, It’s real, and if people don’t believe that all you have to do is look at social media and look at the news a little bit. I want to end on a positive, I still get letters from people expressing gratitude and saying thank you. These decisions we have had to make have been hard. These are things that weigh heavy on all of us that have to make them and we know the sacrifices they entail. But if we didn’t do this stuff then every single model or prediction we had would have had us standing up here having our own version of the front page of the New York Times talking about how 100,000 Americans have died this year alone from a disease that didn’t exist until this year in the USA. Please, do the right thing, care for others, and don’t criticize people who are wearing the mask, and for those not wearing the mask, don’t confront them, just walk away. Others are going to do what they are going to do but you can protect yourself if you follow the guidance given.
• Governor Beshear takes over:
• I wholeheartedly agree with absolutely everything that Dr. Stack said. We have had a couple examples, and it’s only a couple of examples, like what you just saw but we can’t have even 1. That is the challenge, everyone’s decisions matter and just one person making the wrong decision, or one bar allowing wrong things to occur can spread this virus. And I’ll say what he won’t, I wouldn’t go there and I won’t go there, and you shouldn’t either. If we are not going to enforce social distancing at places then they are not safe. But the good news is we continue to appear to be in a decline of even our total number of cases- that’s even with more testing. So today I’m reporting on the last 3 days:
• Total of 387 new cases but let me break that down: 24th 141, 25th 122, 26th 117 Some of the lowest numbers we’ve seen. Now some labs were closed for a few days and likely tomorrow will be a lot higher, but will average out. We have to want and put into action our desire to continue to see that downward movement.
• Positive cases over the last 3 days: 387
• Probable cases: 151
• Total confirmed cases: 8,951
• New cases by county: 146x Jefferson, 41x Shelby, 30x Warren, 26x Fayette, 10x Kenton, 10x Logan, 9x Allen, 8x Ohio, 7x Butler, 6x Henderson, 5x Boone, 5x Oldham, 5x Simpson, 4x Henry, 4x Jessamine, 3x Clay, 3x Daviess, 3x Grant, 3x Grayson, 3x Muhlenberg, 2x Boyle, 2x Campbell, 2x Edmonson, 2x Madison, 2x McCracken, 2x McLean, 1x Ballard, 1x Barren, 1x Bullitt, 1x Calloway, 1x Christian, 1x Clark, 1x Fleming, 1x Franklin, 1x Garrard, 1x Hancock, 1x Hardin, 1x Hart, 1x Hopkins, 1x Jackson, 1x Lawrence, 1x Mercer, 1x Monroe, 1x Montgomery, 1x Nelson, 1x Scott, 1x Spencer, 1x Todd, 1x Woodford, 1x Unknown
• Total tests conducted: 193,576 - serology numbers are in there but we are going to break those out.
• Total hospitalized: 2,136
• Currently hospitalized: 489
• Total in ICU: 897
• Currently in ICU: 78 and I hope that’s accurate though not all hospitals have reported
• Total recovered: 3,115
• New deaths today: 3 But let’s remember that every death is tragic; it brings our total to 394. (1 probable) That means 3 new families are grieving and a total of 394 families in total grieving.
• Total Deaths: 394 So we’ll be turning our lights back on at the mansion, on that same front porch, because we show compassion there, not anger. We show love there, not hate. We will turn this Capitol dome green, and I hope you all light up your houses, your homes, your places of business and your institutions, to honor those that have been lost.
• New deaths by county: 72 F Jefferson, 85 F Adair, 63 M Allen
• All losses are a loss for Kentucky. Let’s light those houses up green and let’s ring those bells at 10am. This is a reminder that we are thinking of the Kentuckians we’ve lost, their families, and their communities. It’s the color of compassion and renewal as their souls move from their bodies to a better place.
• Racial breakdown of all cases: 74.13% Caucasian, 14.61% Black or African-American, 5.68% Asian, 5.4% Multiracial
• Ethnicity breakdown of all cases: 84.31% non-Hispanic and 14.69% Hispanic
• Racial breakdown of all deaths: 77.8% Caucasian, 18.54% Black or African-American, 2% Asian, 1.7% Multiracial
• Ethnicity breakdown of all deaths: 97% non-Hispanic and 3% Hispanic
• Long Term Care Facilities: 54 new residents and 27 new staff positive from yesterday, and 3 more deaths, 26 new facilities. 1,170 residents, 547 staff, 219 deaths
• In the past when we read the ages, and the genders, and the counties, of those we’ve lost and saying that they’re more than just numbers. So are these [referring to the ethnicity and racial percentages]. And it shows things that are not fixed in our society, that have been broken for a long time. And my commitment coming out of this, is to do anything I can to make it right. Healthcare is a basic human right, and it’s time we treated it as such.
• So, if you were one of the people out at that bar, if you are one of the people that knows that there is a virus out there and but you just didn’t care, this doesn’t spring up in these facilities, somebody has to bring it in, and most everybody working at these facilities never bring it in on their own. It is someone who has flaunted or even accidentally become infected, that spreads it to them and brings it in here. All of our actions matter.
• Testing is a real positive: If you look at our testing location across KY, you will see something amazing. We have tests for any one that wants one but we have to have people show up. The white house, federal health experts, state health experts and your governor will tell you, If we can’t test significant people and if we don’t do the tracing of their contacts, we can’t open safely. The white house says you shouldn’t even open if you can’t test a certain level and trace. That’s straight from the president and vice president. But a few disappointing numbers that we want to fix, but I think it’s due to the weekend but we can prove that is the case tomorrow. Looking at our Kroger numbers all sites are all down. As of 4pm, we only have 330 individuals go through our Louisville location though it is booked up for the rest of the week, and we just need you to show up. But in Bowling Green only 206 thus far today and looking at the next 3 days, 84 total signed up on Wednesday, 39 on Thursday, and 22 on Friday. We have a major outbreak in Warren County that our testing can help us identify and control. We just need you to go in and get tested. So, we need all our local leaders, everyone out there pushing people to get tested. None of this, “We don’t want testing so we don’t know there’s a problem” and our Warren county leaders haven’t done that, though we’ve had some others that have declined testing sites. That’s turning your backs on your people. We gotta know the level of our problem if we were going to protect the people out there. That means we have testing everywhere so we make sure we can keep people safe. In Lexington, we had 282 as of 4pm but we need more signups on Wednesday, almost 150 left, Thursday and Friday have almost 400 left. I know Lexington and the surrounding areas have been one of our best areas, we need you to sign up and sign up right now. And finally there is Henderson, now again this is near an outbreak, in Davis county, but unless our numbers are wrong, by 4pm we’ve only had 24 people come through that site, tomorrow we have 22 signed up, Thursday 7. Folks this is real, it’s in this part of the state, we need you to take advantage of this- this is about protecting your community, so come on- right now, go online, signup. Listen, tomorrow you can get in, get the hour that it is going to be done, you will have not wait, you can get in right now. Protect your family, protect your community, if you are someone who is going back to work or is reopening a business, make sure you are not infecting people. This is the way to do it
• We are in the Supreme Court Chambers today. It’s bigger, we’ve been able to open it up to a few more reporters that we have had, up to 6- because we could do it through social distancing.

​
Questions and final word in stickied comment

Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update May 7, 2020
Notes by mr_tyler_durden**,** wavyformula**, and Daily Update Team**
Note: We may need to paraphrase, but the notes are accurate.
Watch here:

• Youtube: Update (YT Channel)
• Facebook: Update (FB Page)

Headlines

• 6,129 Cases (+208), 294 Deaths (+11)
• New cases by county: 45x Jefferson, 41x Warren, 22x Fayette, 12x Daviess, 9x Kenton, 9x Logan, 8x Scott, 6x Allen, 5x Butler, 4x McCracken, 4x Nelson, 3x Boone, 3x Campbell, 3x Edmonson, 3x Graves, 3x Grayson, 3x Henderson, 3x Ohio, 2x Adair, 2x Barren, 2x Bullitt, 2x Madison, 1x Boyd, 1x Bracken, 1x Floyd, 1x Hardin, 1x Harlan, 1x Hopkins, 1x Johnson, 1x Metcalfe, 1x Muhlenberg, 1x Oldham, 1x Pike, 1x Shelby, 1x Simpson, 1x Taylor, 1x Webster
• New deaths by county: 94 M Butler, 97 F Edmonson, 89 M Edmonson, 80 F Edmonson, 86 M Edmonson, 62 M Butler, 72 M Warren, 92 M Edmonson, 78 M Jefferson, 87 F Grayson, 66 M Hardin
• Tonight we’re going to start by talking about Phase 2 of our reopening. It starts with Healthy at Work, with a date that’s a little big earlier. May 22. May 22nd is the date we’re going to work towards for opening our restaurants with limited inside capacity (33%), Unlimited outdoor seating if they can get the spacing that’s required
• Slides from Update

Full Notes

• It’s 5 o’clock on this Thursday, the time we come together, just about everyday, to get an update on our battle with this 1 in every 100 year pandemic and remind ourselves that: We will get through this, and we will get through this together. Everyday we have to say it, why? Because it reminds us to keep the faith and make sure we are mentally and emotionally strong. (Andy signs in ASL) Say it with me: We are going to get through this together. We’re going to get through this because we have been up against big adversaries in the past in Kentucky and we have always come out on top, we’re going to succeed against this adversary as well. We are going to do that because we are going to remember the 10 rules that it takes to defeat COVID19.
• 10 Steps to Fight COVID-19
• No. 1 Healthy at Home: Number one directive. We need to be healthy at home. This is how we protect each other as an American, a neighbor, this is how we save lives. You staying home is a heroic gesture. 99.99% of Kentuckians are doing your duty, and thank you. I’m going to continue to say “Healthy at Home” until we defeat this virus. This helps us reduce our contacts and means we are less likely to spread it.
• No. 2 Avoid Crowds and Gatherings: Whether you’re trying to be Healthy at Home, Healthy at Work or otherwise, practice social distancing, at least 6 feet apart. Remember if you are in public, this helps protect other people from you. It’s a small thing you can do to make sure if you're asymptomatic you don’t spread this virus to others. It’s a small price to pay to make sure you protect your neighbor. When their health, and their life, may be on the line.
• No. 3 Social Distancing: Don't make this an excuse to go to places where people are congregating. We have been able and committed to doing the right thing.
• No. 4 Know When to Seek Care: If you are healthy but nervous then call the coronavirus hotline (800-722-5725), if you are sick but wouldn’t have otherwise sought care then call your primary care physician, but if you are truly sick or injured go to a healthcare facility.
• No. 5 The place to go for information is our website: http://kycovid19.ky.gov/ it’s updated every day, don’t fall to those rumours on social media.
• Make sure you are going to this site, even if you’re not going to a place of employment but you want to know when retail opens up for instance, what type of cautions need to be taken, go to the website and look at it. Hopefully it will show you that we’re going in a safe way. If you need to go to a retail store, hopefully it will give you more confidence, in the safe experience that it should be.
• No. 6 Wash Hands: for 20 seconds(no cheating) with soap and water, and Sanitize Surfaces: Use that 1:100 bleach solution. Do it more, we are approaching the peak of this virus.
• No. 7 Apply for Benefits: Our frontline workers, medical professionals, who are putting their lives on the line, it helps them if you apply for Medicaid https://healthbenefitexchange.ky.gov (855-459-6328) (for reimbursements, etc.)
• 7,500 additional claims from March should be cleared up tonight. I know you've been waiting, you’ve been waiting far too long. It takes it down to 14,000, there are probably some fraud claims, duplicates, and you have been waiting far, far too long.
• No. 8 Prioritize your Mental Health: Make sure you’re getting exercise, make sure you're connecting with people through technology, make sure you’re taking care of yourself and asking other people if they’re doing OK. It’s a small thing that lets people know that you care about them. It makes sure you're taking care of your mental health. In a few interviews I’m asked that and it’s hard to answer. Because none of us are ok, we wouldn’t be normal if any of us were perfectly fine. But we’re getting through it and we got to stay strong through it.
• No. 9 Do Not Travel to other States or Counties: Stay at home as much as possible. Do not give other people a reason to travel, so don’t invite someone from out of state.
• No. 10 Report Noncompliance: Call 833-KY-SAFER (833-597-2337) or report it on the website
• Complete your Census: 844-330-2020. We went from 13th to 14th, we have 6 of the top 10 cities in the country by percentage. I'm hoping we can have at least 1 of our cities close to get there as well. So please fill out that census, it is going to help. We also every day ask you, because we’re Team Kentucky, but everyday is just as important to protect each other’s health. If we take a day where we don’t do the right thing, someone gets harmed. As we hear more noise out there of people who don’t want to do this anymore, showing the right behaviour, putting up the right choices and absolutely celebrating them is helpful in creating that good social pressure to make sure everybody is doing the right thing. Remember just one person making a wrong choice or refusing to see how serious this virus is could potentially harm many.
• Hashtags: #TeamKentucky #TogetherKY #Patriot #HealthyAtHome
• Social Media:
• One of our kiddos getting fed thanks to our public schools, there might not be in person class but they never shut down. They’ve been working hard throughout all of this, with NTI and Delivering millions upon millions of meals. Our schools have always been an important place of learning, but they have done so much to help us survive this pandemic that we should all be thankful to every member of every school across kentucky.
• This is a 21st birthday! Talk about a milestone that this changes. I’m not going to tell any stories about mine, but this is again a sacrifice people are making, that even in moments we really want to be out, we are doing what’s safe. Look at this picture again; just look at how happy everyone is. Just because we’re making sacrifices, can’t do things how we want to, they’re still experiencing joy. Even in the darkness, there is joy. Thank you to Makenzi for sharing her birthday with us, Happy Birthday
• This is some of the drive thru testing that has, with the Kroger site moving out of Bowling Green, stepped up to make sure the local testing is still there. This is a partnership between several folks, we’ve worked with them directly, one community coming together to make sure we get the resources we need. This whole region is hit pretty hard, and it just tells us we can’t let up even as we reopen, it’s still very serious, but we have so many of these going on, so many communities coming together. And doing what it takes.
• This is one of our graduates, graduation is going to be really different this year. More different than any graduating class I can think of. But I am so proud of this graduating class, not just for their accomplishments which are great, not just for their future which is bright, but for the sacrifice they are making. When we looked at Philadelphia vs St. Louis it was a parade that caused a spike in cases there, and knowing that we can't have a large in person graduation because it undoubtedly would cause the same thing, that’s a sacrifice these graduates are making. To start off what could be your professional career, to know you did something heroic just by giving something up, that’s pretty special I hope it’s a lesson our graduates can take with them. Their class, I certainly hope in our lifetime, is the only one of the things they’ll have something to talk about that no one else will.
• This is the national quilt museum in Paducah, it’s an incredible place - Paducah’s downtown has had such a resurgence, we are proud of their work, and their compassion that they’re showing. Did you ever think, you’d see so many green lights out there? You know, when I think about it, yes I would have known when we asked people to show compassion for each other, this is the type of people Kentuckians are. I believe our compassion, our love, the amount we care about each other is stronger than this virus, we just have to keep it up.
• And now we have one of those videos I love showing. It’s a video of another person who has recovered from COVID-19. And it has a soundtrack.
• Pretty incredible. And from a town where there’s been so much loss and a county with so much loss, to be able to celebrate the win, the life. That’s pretty special, and thank you to all that staff that has been under such stress, such pressure and probably crying through their breaks. I know that’s a moment they all wanted so badly, and I hope they share in that moment.
• We’ve had a number of people step up and talk about our Team KY fund, and encourage people to be a part. This is just another way we can help people out there as we rebuild. Knowing it’s going to take just a little bit longer, whether it’s small business or people paying off rent or keeping their utilities on, not just now but as we start reopening, we’ve had it different folks, This is Ouita Michael, who is a restaurant owner, Holly Hill Inn and many other endeavors, who has always been a voice and a spirit of our community, volunteering for just about every great cause across KY.
• We appreciate Ouita and everyone else. We have had donations of $1 dollar, we have had a donation from the KY Colonel of $1m. We have had a lot of $19 donations as we defeat COVID-19.
• We’re moving the numbers up now each time, so
• Today, we are reporting 208 new cases of COVID 19. Total 6,129. 10 probable, rest lab confirmed. 81,391 total tests. We know there are labs not reporting their negatives; we’re getting their positives, but I believe there are still thousands of negative tests.
• Positive cases today: 208
• Probably cases: 10
• Total confirmed cases: 6,129
• New cases by county: 45x Jefferson, 41x Warren, 22x Fayette, 12x Daviess, 9x Kenton, 9x Logan, 8x Scott, 6x Allen, 5x Butler, 4x McCracken, 4x Nelson, 3x Boone, 3x Campbell, 3x Edmonson, 3x Graves, 3x Grayson, 3x Henderson, 3x Ohio, 2x Adair, 2x Barren, 2x Bullitt, 2x Madison, 1x Boyd, 1x Bracken, 1x Floyd, 1x Hardin, 1x Harlan, 1x Hopkins, 1x Johnson, 1x Metcalfe, 1x Muhlenberg, 1x Oldham, 1x Pike, 1x Shelby, 1x Simpson, 1x Taylor, 1x Webster
• Total tests conducted: 81,391
• Total hospitalized: 1,684
• Currently hospitalized: 356
• Total in ICU: 714
• Currently in ICU: 199 - This number has been creeping up, remember this is 199 Kentuckians who are fighting, let’s make sure we are thinking of them
• Total recovered: 2,177
• In the beginning, when we had fewer of these cases, remember we read through some of the demographic information. As I was looking through today, I realized maybe we’ve gotten, maybe not complacent, but as we looked at the devastation at long term facilities, maybe this isn’t something that people of all ages can get, and I saw some comments from other folks out there that this doesn’t affect kids, this doesn't affect young americans. I’m going to read a couple of ages from these 39, 27, 36, 35, 26, 28, 38, 36, 26, 33, 32, 41, 34, 27, 25, 44, 43, 51, 39, 25, 41, 28, 25, 27, 39, 24, 29, 22, 35, 14 years old. 15 years old. 3 years old. 34, 19, 28, 25 years old, 16 years old. So, let’s make sure that we remember, that even as we’re working to open our economy, even as we’ll have some people go back to be Healthy at Work on Monday, that it’s still out there and it’s still dangerous. And misinformation can be deadly. People believe it doesn’t apply to them and they can’t get it - just listen to some of those ages and know that you’ve gotta take steps to protect yourself. Just because we’ve been at this for months doesn’t mean it’s gone. We think we can do this safely, we think we can do it better, but remember that everything that you do to protect one another, also protects people in your household. If wearing this means I don’t bring it back to my 9 and 10 year old, then I’ll do it. Wearing this means that I prevent someone who could have a bad outcome and even death, that’s me protecting my family, living my faith, and living that Golden Rule.
• New deaths today: 11; 8 of those are in our LTC facilities. Each one is more than an age, a gender, and a county.
• New deaths by county: 94 M Butler, 97 F Edmonson, 89 M Edmonson, 80 F Edmonson, 86 M Edmonson, 62 M Butler, 72 M Warren, 92 M Edmonson, 78 M Jefferson, 87 F Grayson, 66 M Hardin
• Let’s remember these are 11 Kentuckians that we have lost, 11 families that are grieving, and maybe more - kids and grandkids. Remember that they're going to have to go through this at a time when we can’t grieve the normal way. We can’t lean on other people physically when maybe we need to. They can’t give a hug to that brother or sister they haven’t seen in a long time, and the way they’re going to have to remember their lost ones is probably virtually or over the phone. A grandson of a preacher who ran a funeral home, I know how important being together during those moments are. Both of my grandparents were laid to rest in their own funeral home, and I hurt for these families. (Andy gets emotional here) and I hate to call that a normal experience. Let’s please, light our houses up green and let’s ring those bells at 10am. Let’s make sure we don’t shortchange these Kentuckians, just because we get tired, and don’t recognize them the same as every other Kentuckian we have lost. Maybe even try to do a little bit more every day. More green lights, more bells being rung. Let’s make sure that we are there for them.
• Racial breakdown of all cases: 74.25% Caucasian, 13.72% Black or African-American, 6.39% Asian, 5.5% Multiracial
• Ethnicity breakdown of all cases: 87.85% non-Hispanic and 12.15% Hispanic
• Racial breakdown of all deaths: 78.85% Caucasian, 17.69% Black or African-American, 2.31% Asian, 1.15% Multiracial
• Ethnicity breakdown of all deaths: 98% non-Hispanic and 2% Hispanic
• Long Term Care Facilities: 21 new residents and 6 new staff positive from yesterday, and 7 more deaths. 863 residents, 353 staff, 167 deaths
• Here we are actually seeing less growth day-to-day than we were seeing in a while in cases, but we continue to see deaths. And...that’s not OK. It’s just not. This is what this virus does, this is real loss, and I know everyone out there is working as hard as they can to prevent it. Good news, FEMA which we’ve been receiving more PPE from, is sending a 14 day supply to all 15,400 Medicaid and Medicare nursing homes. That’s going to be a big help to them, for those who signed up for our program we’ve been providing PPE right when they’re about to run out. Making sure that we help people at the time of greatest need. This should be a help to these facilities, all over Kentucky.
• Tonight we’re going to start by talking about Phase 2 of our reopening. It starts with Healthy at Work, with a date that’s a little big earlier. May 22. May 22nd is the date we’re going to work towards for opening our restaurants with limited inside capacity (33%), Unlimited outdoor seating if they can get the spacing that’s required. I know this isn’t the capacity that our restaurants probably want, but the studies that we look at show that we need to be really careful about this stuff. This allows them to be open for Memorial Day weekend, but please be careful, everyone out there over this weekend. I know we have a lot of small business owners here, I want to be mindful of that to try to help them restart. We hope to gradually be able to raise that capacity, but this is the best compromise between public health and being able to restart this part of the economy. This date came in consultation with Ohio Governor, Mike DeWine. Want to make sure there weren't significant variances, he’s going to open outside seating a little earlier, but We’re going to wait till the 22nd, it just gives time to get all the supplies and follow all the guidelines that are needed. We’re working to get that guidance out, at the very least the 10 steps for Healthy at Work will have to be followed and CDC guidance for restaurants can be downloaded as well for a start, and we're going to go through the proposals that have come in to comment from the association, then back online Remember, these aren’t easy to hit. If I’ve heard one thing form business, it’s that they weren’t expecting - even once they saw these - that it would be as much work as it is to get to the threshold level to be safe. And I’ll mention one, it’s the ability to do a thorough cleaning with the right type of disinfectants. Remember, this isn’t just your restaurant where you’re eating. It’s every surface that people can touch because the virus can spread and it’s multiple times a day. Again, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it safe. We’re only going to do it if it means we can keep it under control so we don’t suffer more loss of life. So May 22nd restaurants, 33% capacity, plus outdoor seating.
• Then June 1st is our target for movie theaters and fitness centers. This gives us time to work on the right type of guidelines to get them in the right type of shape. I will say the movie theater, their assouate sent a really well thought out, especially with the digital movie ticket purchasing, They have some real technological tools to create the right type of social distancing in those facilities.
• June 11 we hope to reopen campgrounds, public and private. Again this is one of the areas that we intentionally originally didn’t want to close at all, but people weren’t social distancing, and we had to do it for the safety of everyone. Now that being Healthy at Home is muscle memory for us, it’s now it’s the world we live in, that we can do this safely.
• June 15 this is a goal we’re pushing for, we want to have a safe plan for childcare, knowing that it is such a challenge for folks. I know it will significantly reduce capacity, it will be very monitored, we’re working through that now. There aren’t going to be that many kids in each “class” if you want to call it, and they’ll be completely separate from others. So that’s one we’re going to be working through. And we’re working on certain youth sports that are low-touch and all of which have to be outside. No indoor youth sports at this point. These are our goals, these are the dates we want to hit, this is the schedule, I want to make happen, One thing and one thing only sets the schedule in the end, and that’s the coronavirus. Any peak that we see, and cause for major concern, we are all going to have to be willing to pause. And all of this is in our new testing and contact tracing world. So if we want to reopen, we have to be committed first of all to picking up the phone when we see if it’s a contact tracer, Person I know is positive, I know I was in contact with them, it’s my responsibility to self quarantine so that we can safely open Kentucky. Even though I didn’t do anything, I came in contact with someone, and I know this is something I have to do for my state. That’s going to be a big challenge. I believe again we’re up to it!
• Things we hope to see in Phase 3 which we hope is in July is getting to groups of 50 people, remember we’re gonna be able to see on May 25th, socially groups on 10 or less. All this schedule could change depending on what we see through June, but right now this is what we see as part of Phase 3. We will be working as fast as we can to get out guidance on these different areas. We’re trying to do it safely. Trying to be inclusive of people's ideas. Understand it takes a little bit of time.
• Now, to do this safely, we need testing. As you’ve seen, we’ve ramped up our testing capacity significantly, and I don’t think our total number of tests right now is accurate right now. But through just the state portion of the drive thru testing and the hospital plan, and tomorrow we’re going to be talking about a targeted long-term care facility testing plan. It is very aggressive, We have the capacity to do up to 30,000 tests per week here in KY as we move forward. That is capacity we have purchased; it's our job to get it all out there. We have more partners that are joining us in this battle. A big part of being healthy at work is being able to get tested when you need it. It’s one of the main requirements we have to meet to reopen our economy and get back to work. So the question is, how do we meet the testing plan. How does a small business, how does a medium or large business, know where to send people or who to work with or what relationship to establish to make sure that if someone comes, in, and they have a fever, You don’t want them to just go home, you want them to get tested so you know as quickly as possible. So we have been working with a company in the private sector to significantly increase our testing capacity at a time when people return to work and return to worship. Today I can announce a new partnership with First Care clinics. They have 13 locations all over KY, can offer drive-through testing every day Aimed at serving our business community, our faith communities, and government offices as they look to reopen. Our vision for this partnership with First Care is that it’s where folks go to get a test if they're going back to work or need to get testing through work. Working with the Kentucky Chamber of commerce, Kentucky council of churches, KCO (SP?), KLC, County Judge Association, and others to make sure people are aware of this opportunity in their community. First Care is working on a way to communicate directly with employers to say you have an avenue here. In this new world where testing is so important, we are here, you can use us. First Care accepts private insurance, medicare and medicaid, and most plans have waived copays, so that means the employee or the employer won’t have to pay anything in almost all circumstances for these tests. For folks that may not have insurance at this time, First Care also enrolls patients into a federal coronavirus testing program that covers the costs of the test. So in addition to the business community, the church community, if you haven’t gotten tested, and don’t have insurance, they can sign you up in a program, you won’t pay anything at all. Anyone can get a test. Because so many people who get the virus are asymptomatic, you don’t have to show symptoms to get a test. First Care has clinics in Henderson, Hopkinsville, Madisonville, Shepherdsville, Bardstown, Danville, Frankfort, Winchester, Somerset, London, Corbin, Pikeville, Middlesboro. First Care is partnering with Solaris Labs. That’s what I was saying the other day - all of our testing capacity is home-grown. It’s 3 groups, I’ll let Dr. Stack talk about the 3rd, but Gravity Diagnostic, Solaris, and 2 Research Universities. Not just meeting but exceeding what the White House is setting out as what we need to test each month. We are absolutely going to have the capacity. Solaris Labs is in Nicholasville, they have stepped up in a big way. They have the capacity to do 120 tests a day, during the week, at each of 84 locations. Meaning we are adding 10,000 tests a week to our capacity. Means we should have the capacity, as we deploy them, to do 40,000 tests, just through Gravity and Solaris. To schedule or see more information, Folks, this is big news. In our new world where testing is so important, and we all had to live through that time when I had to say “if you're doing OK don’t get a test”, that isn’t the case anymore. Get a test. If you feel just a little bit sick, Wondering if it might be allergies, go get a test. Just worried about your family because you’re going back to work and know you have more contacts with people, get a test. It is there. It is available and it can help protect you. And we have one other new lab partner, I’ll let Dr. Stack talk about this one, but the way I see this, is there's now no excuse. You’re running a facility, if 3-5 test positive, these are partners you can work with to get your facility tested. So, this resource is here, big business, med size business, small business, it doesn’t cost you a dime in most instances, now we all have the tools to do the right thing and protect one another.
• Dr Stack: Thank you governor. I’m going to expand and build on what the governor just told you. So this is foundational, to get us back to Healthy at Work, and our more normal lives. The governor talked about First Care urgent care centers where you have options throughout a number of communities. They have 13 sites in Kentucky. I have spoken over the last few weeks with labractories, and health care providers, and it’s a complex undertaking. We’re trying to build an entire infrastructure or a single disease. Unlike anyone we’ve faced before, Bluewater is another lab we have mentioned before, They’re out of Louisville, and they have the ability to provide testing. They already provide testing through 2 locations in Bullitt County and Johnson County. In addition to that, they have the ability to go do testing throughout the state. They have about 35 people. They can deploy through the state to perform the testing. A number of these things just require the people who need the testing to reach out and connect with people who can provide it. We’re trying to share this information so you know it's available. Bluewater’s contact information is at the bottom here. I encourage you if you need testing, are a business, contact them, they're ready, I know they have plenty of capacity and have the materials they need. And like the governor has said, if you have insurance, copays, and patient portions should be waived for these things, that was in federal legislation. If you have Medicaid, this is covered at no cost to the patient. If you are uninsured, the federal government has put in place programs so a lab and a provider for a test can register you and get that paid for too. It should be something that everyone has access to. So thank you for Bluewater who has talked with me over time.
• On our website, https://kycovid19.ky.gov, we now have a map. The map shows 72 sites as of the time I walked up here. There’s an area on here for any healthcare provider or site that is offering testing. You can click the link, fill out a form, and someone on our end will review it, as long as it all looks OK, they’ll post it up here. Please, if you offer testing and you’re not on here. I hope to log in tomorrow and find lots of more testing places available on this map. And the final thing, we have extended a lot of effort working on special settings, the Governor will update tomorrow, elderly communities, LTC, trying to get them all set up for testing. As you’ve known, we’ve worked with prisons, the Green River Correctional Center is the one we’ve talked with most recently, and I’ve been spending a lot of time working with the meat processing industry directly, but we have Dept of Health working with a number of facilities to try to make sure we address their unique need and are supportive to them. Ultimately though we need to have the private sector work in partnership to build the solutions for this. We've talked to the KY Hosp Association, others have talked to the KY Chamber of Commerce and others for the need to bring labs, people to collect specimens and bring them together with employers who will need to do large-scale testing. We'll keep working at that, but thank the private sector too; together we will get through this, Thank you Governor.
• Back to Governor: Let’s remember, first of all look at that - from where we’ve come from, it’s May and we first learned about this virus tail-end of Dec/Jan, first case in March, and we have 72 locations right now where people can be tested. This is one of the reasons I believe we can do Healthy at Work. This is one of the reasons, I believe it’s going to be tough, and we’re going to have to be smart, but with this capacity when you think about the 3 partners we talked about there's a potential for over 50,000 a week, right there. That’s a potential for 200,000 per month; what the WH wants us to meet is 88,000. Now, 88k sounds big when you look at what we’ve done. The capacity has changed very quickly. Our new challenge will be deployment, encouraging people to get tests, and when they need to, to get re-tested. So let’s remember our big Kroger drive-in sites for next week are in Louisville, Lexington, Corbin, and E-Town
• SIgn ups for next week still have 80 spots in Lexington for Monday, 300 in Louisville, Lexington, and Corbin on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, Thurs, and Fri, significant capacity in each of these. So in any of those areas, go ahead and get online, this is how you register. Remember if you sign up you actually go, we don’t want any more no-shows. As of 4 o’clock today we done 279 in Louisville, 348 Lexington, 269 Bowling Green, 283 in Ashland, if we continue with that pace we’re going to do almost 5,000 just from those sites this week, so excited for those opportunities and grateful to every group across KY that is doing this testing. Until we get a vaccine, this is our future and you’re stepping up and you’re making it possible.
• Also really exciting news today about expanded capacity for coronavirus testing awards. We’ve received $10.3 million for 25 health resource and service admin funded health centers. These are health centers that are going to use funding to expand the range of testing and test-related services and activities to best address the needs of local communities. Funding for health centers is part of the PPP and Health Care enhancement act signed into law by the president on April 24th. We have a chart of some of the places that are getting these dollars, they go from Brownsville to Owensboro, Prestonsburg, Lexington, Bowling Green, Greenville, Berksville, Louisville, Gray, Mckee, Lexington, Covington, Beattyville, Hazard, Richmond, Vanceburg, Prestonsburg, Whitesburg, Louisville, Hopkinsville, Providence, Mt. Sterling, and Warsaw (Some were listed twice because of multiple locations I think). So again, just an example of more funds coming in for programs that are out there. There were days during this that we wondered if there ever would be more testing. We wondered if we could ever secure PPE. And days are getting much better on those fronts.
• Separately, we have been able to announce 22.9 million in KY transportation cabinet funding through the CARES ACT. That is here, and it shows you all the counties all over KY that are going to be receiving money for transportation, especially mass transit, bussing system and the like. It’s to help keep them clean. Again, it is helpful as we move forward.
• Now while that funding is exciting, we continue to see scams out there trying to take your money. Just want to briefly mention a utility scam, where people are getting calls from someone claiming to be from the electric company threatening to disconnect their service without immediate payment. They cannot do this. In March, I issued an order that halts disconnections and fees for late payments during this crisis. So if someone is calling and saying they’re going to disconnect, Hang up. I feel like the Attorney General again. But this is a very important step because at a time that I know we’re all struggling just to get by, I don’t want you to lose any money. And you can call the Attorney General Consumer Hotline at 888-432-9257. We’re in the test of our lives, and let's make sure we don’t let someone take advantage of us during it.
• A lot of updates today, a lot of news about how we move forward. Some positive news in testing. A tough day in those we lost, but we’re going to continue to have those. Tomorrow we’re going to go over our plan for LTC facilities. Sec Friedlander is going to lay that out, then we can answer questions about that.

Questions and final word in stickied comment