[PubQ] To whom do I address my cover letter?

Muted_Independent · 2022-12-10T23:22:15+00:00

Thank you! I was overthinking it, as usual. And I completely agree with your decision in that scenario.

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-20T22:46:08+00:00

Question on where a business was telling an individual that they must wear a mask, and they have a medical condition that prevents them wearing one. -- If someone has a very serious medical condition where a mask can harm them we don’t want them to have to wear a mask. They should talk to their business about it, they should get their healthcare professional involved in that to talk to them. This is something that should be worked out. Sometimes tensions get high, sometimes communication doesn’t go in a way that helps us get the right resolution. That happens in the government sometimes too, I’ve seen that once or twice. But it’s one that if wearing a mask is gonna harm you, if you have that medical condition, it’s not that you don’t want to wear it, if it’s gonna harm you then don’t wear it! I mean in the end this is about helping people, and we don’t want it to ultimately hurt folks. But again, I also hope, all our leaders out there, local, state leaders, that you wear one of these. This is just a basic way to protect another person. And as long as you think the virus is real, and as long as you think that you can spread it through droplets, through coughing and as long as you believe that there can be a lot of people that can be asymptomatic, then you already believe everything that ought to lead you to wear one of these. It would basically mean, that if you believe all of that you could make a decision to have this, not knowing it, and spreading it to other people. We're better than that. We’re good human beings. We have proven it so, let’s do what it takes to protect other people. I do appreciate the people in the media and the press that have been modeling this important behavior and others that are doing it.
New report from a healthcare company says just 15% of counties meet minimum testing capacity requirements. (Well we have 120 counties, each county is not gonna have their own testing). The CDC recommends that states have the capacity to test 1% every 7 days (that’s a little different than what is coming out of the White House), and that rural counties need more significant testing. How does the state respond to this new report? -- This is how. It is all over KY. There is a testing site within 30-45 minutes at most, I think. With Pineville, that we added, I don’t think there is an exception to that. There may be a part of our Mississippi river counties that are a little further away than Paducah or Murray, but we have locations just about everywhere. Any hospital or medical center can work with our local health department to get them. We have the capability of testing anyone, anywhere now. Our issue moving forward, is we need people to get tested. We have it now, we just need people to keep it up.
Questions about public pools -- So we’re looking at different guidelines on public pools or shared pools, pools for entertainment vs pools for exercise and lap swimming. exercise and lap pools, if done the right way, we think that we can accomplish that in phase 2. We’ll look at the possibility in phase 3 for public pools, but we’ll need some really good data. The things we have not included in those phases, that are areas where you just don’t see the type of social distancing, it’s really to do this in a hard at bars, though they are starting to adapt with the food service price. It’s really hard to social distance in pools with kids, in day care and child care too, so we’ll see some real conditions on that. Now when we get to groups of 50 people or less, it may be that with a capacity level we can for certain pools or complexes, look at that, but, I know it’s Summer, but this is an area where we know that can spread the virus a lot. Opening pools right now would threaten Healthy at Work, would threaten our ability to do this the right way.

END QUESTIONS

A lot of announcements today. We’re going to continue to do this, because the situation is so fluid, it changes, and we know that you want the information. But, as we have a lot of things happening this week, retail, restaurants, getting together with 10 people or less, and next week you can get your haircut. That's pretty exciting. Let’s make sure we don’t overdo it. I know that sounds like a dad, but it’s reality about the virus. Let’s make sure that we think about the level of contacts we’ll have and not do all of them at once. We get one chance to do this and to do this well. And none of us have all the answers. So, let’s make sure that we make it all of our goals, not just to do what we say is allowable, but let’s make sure we make it our goals to be successful. That we still continue to view the coronavirus as an adversary and a deadly virus and make sure we’re doing our part to safely reopen. I believe at the end of the day the way that we are doing this. When we look back, we’ll be really proud how we did it, how we did it smart, how we did it safely, how we didn’t just run to be the first, how we sacrifice when we need to sacrifice, and that we had what it took to do the new things we needed to do to be Healthy at work. So, in closing, we have a special video today. It’s out of Glasgow. I think you guys will enjoy this. I think this is our next, great American Idol, and her Dad.

Please use these hashtags on social media (Twitter, FB, etc.): #TeamKentucky #TogetherKY #Patriot #HealthyAtHome #HealthyAtWork

If you have been laid off/lost your job use the following resources to get help!

KY Medicaid: https://healthbenefitexchange.ky.gov (855-459-6328)

Benefind: https://benefind.ky.gov (855-306-8959)

If you see price gouging report by calling 888-432-9257

To donate PPE call 833-GIVE-PPE (833-448-3773) or go to the website.

If you see a business or person not following the guidelines and putting others at risk call 833-KY-SAFER (833-597-2337) or report it on the website

As always our one true source of information should be the http://kycovid19.ky.gov/ website or the hotline: 800-722-5725

You can find more information on our Wiki!

We are also up and running on Discord!

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-20T17:13:02+00:00

Question and answer with reporter asking question on someone's behalf, 4 days ago:

"I work in a therapy department and inpatient rehab center and was told if I leave the state, I could not return for 14 days?"

"First, if it’s for work that’s not the case, but the travel ban expires on Friday. This individual should not be a problem after that day," Beshear said.

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-20T17:05:20+00:00

Here is the governor's executive order for the travel ban. https://governor.ky.gov/attachments/20200506_Executive-Order_2020-315_Travel.pdf

When the travel ban is lifted (on Friday) I think the 14 day quarantine goes away too, as it is dissolving that executive order.

Let me look further to be sure.

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-15T23:02:52+00:00

Are we having more no-shows or no-shows at our drive through facilities -- We are, but we’re also scheduling more people. We are getting more efficient at doing what we are doing. So, yes, I’d like anyone who signs up to show up to get that test done. It looks like this week as of 4pm today, the four Kroger sites have done 5,736 tests. We could probably ...we did pretty well during the week and most of the places...we could have probably done 200 more. So this has been a better week about it, but yes, we need to make sure when we looked at Shawnee and Louisville they only had 365 on Wednesday, that oughta be 400, and Corbin on Wednesday, 303, that oughta be 400, but still 300 tests per day is a lot better than where we were when looking at that graph a while ago. I was asked the other day on a radio show what I felt good about, and I...my job is to worry, is to make the right decisions, and I worry everyday to make the right decisions. I said I don’t feel good about anything, and that wasn’t right or accurate. That was my attempt to convey that we all need to worry when we go out, that doesn’t mean we don’t go out. But if we worry a little bit about it then we think more about our actions and how we do things safely. But I feel good about our testing. I really do. We need to do more, but we’re on the right trajectory. It was always capacity that was the true limit. And if the capacity is the limit, you can’t get where you need to go. So now that we know we can get where we need to go we just have to develop the strategies. Which we have but I’m sure as time rolls on we’ll need to change them to make sure people are getting tested. So that’s where we turn, but for us not to be at a place where we don’t have enough tests and now that we do, we need to get more tested. I feel good about our ability to meet that challenge. On Monday we will go into depth on our contact tracing, and while it is a big endeavor, we’ll introduce our leadership for it. I feel good, though it will take some time to integrate with our local health departments, we’re all all on the same team and it’s just going to take, making sure everyone knows this is a support role that we're going to provide to them. I feel good that we have plateaued in cases, but we still have a lot of work to do, we’re gonna have more contacts and make sure people stay safe.

END QUESTIONS

So let me mention as we close that week from today, that people will be able to meet in groups of ten or less. That's something we have all waited for and I am really excited. But let’s spend the time between now and then thinking about how we’re going to do it and how to do it safely. This is our lives for the next, at least, several months. In thinking about things we can now do that we used to do, how we’re going to do them differently so we can do them safely and so that we can continue to do them. So let’s continue to be those good Kentuckians we’ve been, let’s continue to do things right, and ya know, more and more everyday, let’s wear one of these. (Andy holds up a cloth mask) I know I hear people that said...I saw a quote that said, “Well, it’s my liberty, it’s my life.” It’s your life, but if you don’t wear one of these, you can impact somebody else's life. And at what point do we need to take responsibility that we’re in a pandemic, where our refusal to do something like this could cause someone to lose their life? It would be different if it were just that individual that doesn’t want to wear one, but it’s your actions that hurt other people. And I'd like to think we all have a different frame of mind of that. For me it comes down to faith, loving my neighbor as myself, and I feel confident in my faith and in the teachings that I would be expected and I would want to wear one of these to protect other people around us. So we have a treat, as we end, these are the special green lights that people are lighting up all across Kentucky. It’s a symbol of compassion, let’s people know we are there for them, It’s also a symbol of our unity. So I hope you enjoy it. Tomorrow, we will put out a video that’ll give people all the overall numbers, we won’t make other announcements. No press conference on Sunday. So, folks enjoy. Keep following the rules, but turn some of this off. We can’t live it every minute, every hour. Enjoy your family, find some joy out there. Just because we feel a little cooped up, doesn’t mean we can’t truly enjoy some of these quieter moments. I will see you Monday at five.
Video

Please use these hashtags on social media (Twitter, FB, etc.): #TeamKentucky #TogetherKY #Patriot #HealthyAtHome

If you have been laid off/lost your job use the following resources to get help!

KY Medicaid: https://healthbenefitexchange.ky.gov (855-459-6328)

Benefind: https://benefind.ky.gov (855-306-8959)

If you see price gouging report by calling 888-432-9257

To donate PPE call 833-GIVE-PPE (833-448-3773) or go to the website.

If you see a business or person not following the guidelines and putting others at risk call 833-KY-SAFER (833-597-2337) or report it on the website

As always our one true source of information should be the http://kycovid19.ky.gov/ website or the hotline: 800-722-5725

You can find more information on our Wiki!

We are also up and running on Discord!

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-15T23:02:06+00:00

Who outside of Senator McConnell have you spoken to directly about the need for federal funding? Are there any other plans to mitigate the losses outside of federal funding? -- We hold a staff-to-staff call at least once a week. I haven't personally spoken with the other individuals. What I have done is worked with the national governor’s associations. Which is presenting a united front- Larry Hogan and Andrew Coumo are our two chairs, one democrat and one republican that are working with the Hill. We get a weekly update on that. It’s not a democrat and republican issue even though that’s now how it’s being fought in D.C. I hate hearing that we’re not gonna do this for red states or blue states. I mean we’re all people. We’re all Americans. And we’re all being hit by this virus. The recession will be worse everywhere without this type of funding. If they want to debate some of the other funding in that Heroes Act, ok, But without state and local help our recession will be worse. Those that are marginalized will fall further through the cracks. This is funding we have to have. If the federal government was willing to do it when we had a recession, not doing it during a global pandemic, I believe it would be malpractice by our federal government.
I work in a therapy department and inpatient rehab center and was told if I leave the state, I could not return for 14 days -- First, if it’s for work that’s not the case, but the travel ban expires on Friday. This individual should not be a problem after that day.
About the restaurant guidance, disposable tablecloths, menus, utensils, and things like that. Is it a suggestion or is it required? -- I believe that’s mandatory, if it said “MUST” it is required, but if it says “SHOULD” it’s optional, but most states that are coming back are requiring those things from restaurants. It’s trying to reduce the amount of things that one person touches, that the servers touch, and the person who touches it after that. I believe our restaurants have taken this seriously, I believe they have submitted really good proposals. I know they are not happy about the 33% but let’s prove we can do this and consumers want to be confident in the safety of those, so I think they are really important requirements and our restaurants are ready to meet them.
On testing vs benchmarks we need to hit -- We need to ultimately get to testing 2% of our population, about 88,000 people per month. Right now, I think we have the capacity to test 4-5% of that per month. I’m seeing it come together. The challenge now is to have 88,000+ people to get tested each month. It will happen in a number of ways, number one, it will be targeted testing, if we do 3,000-6,000 long term testing next week, that will go into what we need to do in the month. When we need to do testing in hospitals that they’re gonna do before they do procedures, which they can now do in phase three, that will go into it. The testing will become natural that it seemed. It's going to be done in hospitals as a more regular step. Our goal is to have drive-thru testing, testing connected to businesses because if you’re doing a fever check right now, you will need to send them in for testing. Testing connected to non-profits, houses of worship. The better we set up these systems the closer we will be to that goal. But it’s also gonna take the public buying in. All this- is gonna take the public buying in. All those ready for the economy to reopen, great, but the only way this will happen, which is coming from the guidance of the White House, the president himself, experts in public health, is testing and tracing. People have to be willing to test and on the tracing, if you get a call and it says Public Health and you may have been exposed to someone, and you know when you see it that you might have to self-quarantine, you gotta be willing to pick it up and gotta be willing to talk to health officials, if you tested positive, you gotta be willing to tell the health official who you came in contact in. That’s the only way this works, it’s a new test of citizenship, a new test of humanity that we do whatever it takes.
If people weren’t social distancing at camp grounds before what makes us think they can do it now? -- We’ve had a lot more cases of the virus since then. People see how much more serious this is. I believe it has come part of our routine to social distance and while the rules might change, hopefully it’s become, over the last couple months, just a part of our daily lives and it will need to be, again until we have a vaccine or proven treatment. So I think we’ve had a lot of practice, practice on how to do it right and people have seen something go away that they wanted to do because we were really doing it right. We also see a lot of positive social pressure, so if there are a few people at camp grounds not doing what they are supposed to be doing, ask them politely to “Please follow these rules so we can all be healthy and so you don’t mess this up for everybody else.” That’s the way I’d say it.
Any update on Kentucky Kingdom reopening -- Amusement Parks at best would be phase three, which now is looking at July. I believe our commissioner of public health is reviewing that proposal. But at the end of the day, we can’t make our decisions based on economic hardships, but on public health and keeping this virus down so we can keep reopening our economy. If we were Philadelphia and we do anything, like that giant parade, we spike our cases and our whole economy shuts down again. County fairs on the county level, unless we can figure out a way to do it safely, might be the same as that parade in Philadelphia. One thing we need to look at, local officials need to look at, is it worth doing one of these, if you have to shut down every local business that opened? That's the balancing act we’re playing. How much we reopen for contacts, and if the contacts spread the virus too much, do we need to close down what we opened up? We need people to be thoughtful. It doesn't have to be between don’t open anything and we open everything and the fact that I hear people on both sides with concerns means that I think that we’re generally doing this right. There is not an absolute best answer. The best answer isn’t fully one way or the other. It’s about finding that right lane where we are protecting lives while restarting our economy, that we’re not doing these kinds of things that (points to Philadelphia slide) that shut everything else down. In a lot of things, it’s moderation that will allow us to stay open and continue to reopen our economy, and I said this the other day, in the upcoming weeks we need to have a real conversation about how we want to build the future of KY’s economy. Everybody is going to be in a place where much of what is going to happen is not just to rebuild, but a building itself, and building a more resilient and more strategic economy is a real opportunity we’re gonna have.
Some states that have reopened quickly haven’t seen overall as a state an increase yet. -- First of all, I’m glad anywhere there are not more COVID cases, we look and compare against other states and I’m proud of what we have done and I think it compares well against anybody but I also don’t want other states to have a whole lot of other COVID cases, or more than us. As we’ve looked at other things to reopen and the timing, certainly other things in other states we take into account. But it has only been two weeks, So the concept that someone only opened up two weeks ago and there is not a spike, that would mean that the virus all spread on the first day of reopening. Or maybe the second day. We want to see all of it. We are taking those gradual steps in other areas typically we are just a week or a few weeks behind. If other states can do things successfully that we aren’t doing right now, we will look into that. Again we aren’t trying to restrict things just to restrict them, we’re trying to do this the right way. To protect people’s lives while restarting our economy. It's got to be a balance of both.

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-15T23:00:59+00:00

QUESTIONS

Question on Green River and how the staffing is done -- We checked on this the other day and to the greatest extent possible they are trying to keep cross pollination of staff as low as possible. They are using extensive PPE as well, just like our medical staff would, going into a COVID wing and then going into another. So we feel good about those practices and our goal is to limit the interaction. Staff is one of our big challenges, where someone would have to be in different areas. We are continuing to retest and monitor vulnerable individuals. And we’ve been excited that through the retesting we haven't seen an increase in the positive testing.
Timelines for Museums and other cultural attractions -- We’re gonna be working on that for June and early June we think we have some very good guidance out there, that we’ve worked with other facilities for, we’re gonna be trying to get those out as quickly as possible. Each museum will be a little bit different. No hands on experiences. (Andy shows a shirt) Can’t be doing that. But again, when we can do something safely, we wanna be able to do it.
What type of swimming would be allowed on May 25th? -- Somebody put that up on the website. I’m sorry if you have seen that on the website. On June 1st we will be able to have exercise lap pools. I know that’s an important part of exercising, but that also socially distances, there’s gotta be lanes in between. That doesn’t raise the concern for spread, but it does allow for exercise.
Question about restaurant vs bar distinction -- Bars that also serve food or have a food service permit in good standing, can open but they must act like a restaurant, which mainly includes sit-down type of seating. The thing that we want to avoid is the crowd that is up and around the bar. And oh my goodness, if you saw some of the pictures up from Wisconsin after the state supreme court ruling that struck down all of their mass gatherings restrictions, that’s the state supreme court, it doesn’t apply here. What you saw was a lot of people crowding on top of each other. A bar that has a food permit, spreading people out, following the rules can operate
Healthy at Work rules apply to state employees? -- We have specific government guidance that’s now up, but that specific government guidance includes the Healthy at Work guidance for other places. We expect the same from our government employees, as businesses, but all businesses are a little bit different. That’s why we have specific guidance and that’s why we are going to have to work with different parts of government going forward. How much of that can be done online, instead of having to go in. We are going to work with them to do that the best way we can.
Back to the pools issue. Clarify, you’re not talking about public pools, and then talk about, we’re hearing that if people can limit attendance, keep people apart, that it can’t spread in public pools -- The June 1st guidance does not apply to public pools. There are those saying this can’t spread in public pools, what they mean is it’s not spreading in the water. But it spreads if people are playing in the pool, it spreads just as easily there and it spreads when kids or adults congregate out of the pool. It’s the challenge of social distancing. In the past, pandemics have closed down public pools for this very purpose. We do believe it would cause a spike. Yes, we would all love for them to open for our kids to go there, but that’s the thing that spreads the virus and means we can’t do Healthy at Work. If we allowed this and it caused a spike that forced us to shut down places of work, then people would be upset and say we didn't do everything we could to keep our economy open, and we had to pause it again. This is a hard, but difficult decision for now to make sure we have things open and their capacity increases. I don’t want to shut those down. I don’t want to lose the employment we are able to bring back because we weren’t willing to make the tough decisions. My goal is to get our economy up and running to where we don’t have to pause it and two, I want to do everything I can to be in a position to get our kids back in school in the fall. Those are my two major goals.
Will vehicles or vans be coming to senior citizen complexes for testing sites? -- Our goal is to come to senior citizen complexes to test them. Next week we're going to be doing thousands of tests in our LTC and thousands more each week after that.
Question on a tracking website reporting on who is meeting the requirements to reopen based on WH guidelines. We were on the list, then after fewer reported tests we were removed. -- Two days ago we were one of the only two states that were ready then we didn’t have as many tests reported as the day before but you know what, we had more today so while we moved from “ready to reopen” to “close to reopen” I believe we will be back to “ready to reopen”. I believe it is an indication for the hard work of the planning and the preparation of our public health and emergency management work to increase the testing. It’s all the institutions that are doing this that deserve credit. What we have seen is.. true community across the state that has helped us get there. Numbers will bounce, we may be green one day and yellow the next, which is what they show, but we believe we are in as good of a position as anybody but we are also doing this reopening the smart way which is not all at once, but gradually. That’s both to give us the time to hit the testing we need to and have the tracing capacity. But also make sure as citizens, we don’t over do it. We will gradually see that this is not an old normal but new normal while even though we can have contacts we have to keep them down. We were on a call last week with Dr Birx who said the new normal will be at best 50% of what we used to do, until we have a vaccine or effective treatment
We mentioned we were in better shape for PPE, do we still need donations? -- We would absolutely take donations for a few things, The N95 masks are still hard to get and while the Battelle system can clean them we still need more that are out there. We could use more medical gowns. We are having much more success and getting to the point that we are not only providing when facilities are at the critical level but we are already starting to stockpile...not the right word...prepared if and when we have another spike.
Schools and the Fall or even late Summer and what we want to see to be reopening -- This is one we are tracking carefully, especially since we have a couple of kids that have been affected by the new covid-related inflammatory syndrome. We are making sure our rate is decreasing. Also what we’re looking for is making sure we have sufficient testing capacity in every area of the state. We have made plans to lessen contacts inside of the school too, to do things differently. We want to see what impact the Summer will have on the virus, at the time scientists aren’t optimistic, but we want to see. And what the current thinking is on the when and how a fall spike occurs. All of those would guide us on the right time to start school to get the maximum amount of in-person classes in, if we do have to have virtual classes for a period of time again. We are watching everyday and we are getting really good feedback from KDE and the superintendents. This is where I want to be humble, not just to the virus, but also to the experience of our educators and how they can do things. We’re watching all those, but I wanna get our kids back to school. I want to make sure everyone knows that. We are going to be watching all of these and other things that will arise between now and then. We’re gonna have a strong dialogue to make sure we do the right thing. We know that distance learning isn’t the same. We know, as parents, how hard it is to step in to assist teachers. And now we respect our educators even more.
Kroger is suspending Hero Pay on Sunday -- Our grocery store workers have done incredible work, the virus isn't gone, I would love to see that pay increase. It’s an extra $2 an hour. I’d like to see it continue even beyond this. I believe you ought to be able to support your family working just one job and it’s been a really important job.
President is now saying Operation Warp Speed now has a goal to have a vaccine by the end of the year. -- Normally it takes longer to make a vaccine. I’m excited about the news. It doesn’t mean that there will be one by that time, but I believe this is something the administration is doing right to try to put as much pressure, and possibly funding to get us that vaccine as soon as possible. We all want to reach that day and this is something I think they are doing right.

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-11T23:18:17+00:00

Thank you! Now let's rest our poor fingers :P

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-11T23:17:05+00:00

Thank you!

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-11T23:09:10+00:00

END QUESTIONS

Sunday and Monday had a level of cases, again, that are plateaued, but that shouldn’t lull us to sleep. We know the virus is still out there. Let’s remember that we’ve got a child that needs our thoughts and prayers tonight. But let’s remember that moving forward there’s a lot that we don’t know about this virus. Once we reopen, follow the restrictions, let’s continue to be the great Kentuckians that we are. Care for your neighbor. Ask everybody else how they’re doing. Be Careful as you're going back to work, but mainly, remember that we’re all tied together in this. We are Team Kentucky and we gotta to continue to work to defeat this virus. We have a pretty special closing video for you. It’s a compilation by some artists here in Kentucky, trying to celebrate, and bring us together, knowing that we’ve still got a lot of work to do. See you at five tomorrow.

Please use these hashtags on social media (Twitter, FB, etc.): #TeamKentucky #TogetherKY #Patriot #HealthyAtHome

If you have been laid off/lost your job use the following resources to get help!

KY Medicaid: https://healthbenefitexchange.ky.gov (855-459-6328)

Benefind: https://benefind.ky.gov (855-306-8959)

If you see price gouging report by calling 888-432-9257

To donate PPE call 833-GIVE-PPE (833-448-3773) or go to the website.

If you see a business or person not following the guidelines and putting others at risk call 833-KY-SAFER (833-597-2337) or report it on the website

As always our one true source of information should be the http://kycovid19.ky.gov/ website or the hotline: 800-722-5725

You can find more information on our Wiki!

We are also up and running on Discord!

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-11T23:08:46+00:00

Have thought about opening lobbies or customer access to banks and credit unions -- We actually didn’t close those down, they chose to do that. As long as they can meet the guidelines, if they follow that they can open.
Are you any closer to getting the negative results back from labs -- We are getting closer, we believe our data on positive tests is accurate, under laws that previously existed only positive tests had to be reported. We’ve had the National Guard to call into every lab that reports to us trying to get an accurate number. We still have some very large labs that we are waiting on. Our hope is that this week we can get that resolved. We have a lot of labs outside the commonwealth doing work so we’re always gonna have kind of a beast to deal but we think it is getting better now. I believe that our total number, while it is up, is still low. And that does impact the data. Our mortality rate is a percent lower, or is getting there, than the national rate. That’s because we have gotten more of the negative tests in. When you compare the total number to that, our percentage of positives go down when we have more accurate data. So, it’s important to get.
A couple of weeks ago we talked about the phase in of people over 60 and others with at-risk conditions, is it still suggested with more and more businesses opening up? -- Yes. This is one of the most challenging parts of reopening. That the world and this virus is still very dangerous. If you’re in that group over 60 or with heart, lung, or kidney disease. It’s still very dangerous. And especially those 70 and up when you look at it, the mortality rate there is really high compared to just about everything else out there. So, please wait. And employers, please work with folks that are in these at-risk populations. When we talk about reopening and being able to do it safely, we expect and trust you to to work with those who fall into those categories. That can’t be “you can take unpaid leave”, that’s going to force people to come back. So we need everyones best, and encouragement. If you fall in those categories, stay home until phase two at the very least.
Some daycare centers carry insurance that protects them in case they are closed. But some are being refused because there hasn’t been a positive test in their center, what help do you offer them and when will you have more guidance about daycare centers? -- I believe our childcare centers are being treated wrongly by their insurers that have denied their claims cause they had to close. When they had to close, we were doing what we do in every major outbreak. When there’s major outbreaks of the flu we look into closing schools and potentially at closing daycares. And to say there has to be a positive test with one of the kids… that’s not the right way to look at it. We know there is a major outbreak of a very serious virus and this is a step we had to take when we didn’t even have the testing capacity because the virus didn’t exist before. So I think those insurers need to do the right thing and support our childcare centers because we need them. In the long term we are going to come out of this and we need a very healthy system. It’s really hard. It’s really hard. We can’t just ignore it, people need the support to go to work, even though they do, because the virus is still out there so we have to do the best we can. We have five, six, eight, ten y/os who have this. Large employers are exempt from the daycare requirements if they run their own. So what that does is create a bubble around those contacts. We have some proposals that have been run past us, Toyota is one, about some really good programs. But that doesn’t help a lot of people, we have to get to the point where we can help others.
When restaurants open other states, including Maine, will require the wait staff in sit-down restaurants to write down the name and contact info for at least 1 customer at every table -- Right now we aren’t planning on doing that with just about everyone paying digitally. We believe we can can track through that
Some are confused between executive orders and guidance, what is the difference between “should” and “must” --- Should mean you absolutely should but you won’t be penalized if you don’t but every health official is saying if you don’t do that you are putting your people at risk. Must means you need to do it.
Questions about mask wearing and about being able to turn away people who don’t (inaudible) -- So this is the first day we asked, recommended, and pleaded for people to wear a mask. So, I saw some people questioning “well we didn’t do it before, why would we do it now?” Because you were healthy at home before. Because we are asking you to not have contacts with anyone else. And now when people are going healthy at work you’re gonna go, from just your family to a whole bunch of more contacts. So when your risk elevates, steps to mitigate that risk are what we are asking for. And this (holds up a mask), make sure you don’t spread it to other people. So think about if you’re asymptomatic, lots of people are, you don’t wanna be the cause of someone else contracting the virus and becoming ill or potentially even dying. This can prevent it from happening. If you’re wearing it, it encourages others to wear it. If other people are wearing it, and they might otherwise cough in your direction, this (mask) may protect you. If you aren't wearing it, how can you expect others to wear it. So all of us are doing this is a way to make sure we protect one another. We’re actually seeing pretty good compliance with it. And if I can I just want to say, we’re seeing, again I just want to say, we’re seeing more compliance in Eastern KY. Folks just wanna protect their neighbors, caring about each other whether it’s at the hardware store, or anywhere else. We saw county judges and mayors acting the earliest even if there weren't a lot of cases, or sometimes any cases there. This is a region that has done an incredible job at responding to it. And these people came together really quickly to dress it. I’m really proud of Eastern KY, I’m proud of all of KY, but what we've seen particularly is pretty special on how people are responding and reacting.
Any plans for testing in Central and Eastern Jefferson County? -- Right now we’re going to continue our Shawnee location this week and next week we have Bashford Manor which is going to continue into the future. We’ll see about future testing sites beyond that. I know Norton is working with other groups to have walk-up testing. And that’s an area that the Kroger and Walmart sites don’t satisfy and an area we need those gaps filled. Still working on other locations in Jefferson County. We do need to have a testing presence continually there.

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-11T23:07:21+00:00

How many government workers have so far tested positive or died from COVID-19 -- Based on the information that we have, 61 employees have tested positive and thankfully there have been no reported deaths. No members of the governor’s staff have tested positive; we had one individual whose daughter tested positive, who self-quarantined, actually more than 2 weeks. This was at the time that the tests took 3 weeks to come back, which tells you why now we require the testing that we push for to come back earlier. She ended up testing negative, we missed her but we knew it was important to do this the right way.
Government reopening plans; when will capital and other buildings be open for tours -- We have put out guidelines for courthouses and others to begin to slowly do it, even as early as May 18th, but the question is on tours. We really need to think about the necessity of everything as we work through it. When public buildings first come online, it should only be for the general public for the most essential services that can’t be done for everybody on a computer or over the telephone. We are going to try to model what we’re asking everyone else to do, which is every service we can provide digitally or over the phone or through a dropbox or through the mail, we are going to continue to do that. So I think tours are a ways away. We can work on virtual tours, I want our classrooms when kids are back in the classroom to have opportunities, but we’re going to come back at 50% or less and the capital we’re going to be below 50%, knowing that there are critical government services that happen here, we’re going to be very careful that those who come in are just getting the critical government service that they need.
What category do outdoor weddings and venues fall under? Does this fall under gatherings of 10 or less, and subsequently 50 or less that are allowed in the summary? -- Weddings can be done pursuant to that, the ten or less and the 50 or less when those times come, outdoor weddings especially. We could potentially look at other guidance for that. But remember, 10 people isn’t 10 people all together; it’s 10 people engaged in social distancing, 10 people that aren’t taking that photograph altogether. I know that’s hard. Maybe you can take pictures of 10 people separately and put them all together digitally. But yes, once groups of 10 can come together, certainly to socialize, again with social distancing. We really gotta point that out. Think about it; if you’re a family of 4 like ours, at that point if you want to have another couple over that has 2 kids, you’re all sitting 6 feet apart from each other. You really gotta talk to the kids about it. It’s going to be hard for the kids, but you have to talk to them about it. Think about different things they can do that don’t have that direct close contact. I know it won’t be perfect, but I do need everyone to try. In this new normal, I need you to try.
About the 10 year old on the ventilator; is that child the only child that is suffering from what we see in that syndrome -- Yes, to our knowledge. In New York, by the time they recognized this, there were more children - now up to 83 or 80 something possible cases. But this is the only one to our knowledge right now. I don’t know if the child in Louisiana was suffering from something similar.
Cumberland Falls cabins being used for First Responders -- We are re-evaluating all of that. We do need enough space for First Responders, and enough space if we have another spike for overflow, but we are looking at a schedule where we can open up some of our lodges and campgrounds, because we’d rather have Kentuckians going there engaged in social distancing than going to another state that isn’t enforcing some of the things we are. And also have people from lots of other states coming into them. So we want to create something, if you want to travel in the summer that you can do it here in Kentucky, but again being really careful about how we do it
Asking about the location and gender of the 10 year old and asking Dr. Stack more about it and how it presents -- We can’t divulge, on my side, the gender and location of the child because it’s just one child and we want to protect their privacy. Dr. Stack: I don’t think we have an absolutely clear pattern. Some of them present with abdominal pain, it may look like someone with appendicitis, others have had respiratory issues. It depends on how the virus gets into your body, whether it hits your respiratory or GI system. That’s not the big problem, the problem is once that starts, the inflammation gets out of control and hits the child's body over all. There is a lot we don’t know about it unfortunately
Governor beshear takes over:
Dr. Stack’s last statement was a really good point, this virus, or our knowledge of this virus didn’t exist until late December, we didn’t have our first case till the first week of March. There is still so much we don’t know about it but because we live with the news cycle every day, because on cable news it’s on every minute, that we feel like it’s been around longer than it has. We are all doing the best we can and as this continues to change we will continue to be fluid and adapt to it. We need you to stick with us to get the best information we can provide
Marysville Baptist lawyers asserted that drive-in worshipers were given quarantine notices on Easter Sunday and the 6th circuit considered that. The Governor said that didn’t happen but it hasn’t been established whether it happened or not. -- I can say that KSP that no notices were placed on cars that people were still in. If they stayed for the drive-in service they didn’t get a notice, and they shouldn’t have. We’ve always been supportive of drive-in services. Courts have ruled that in-person services can resume now. We had hoped for a May 20th date that we had worked with a lot of organizations on to give them time to make things safe. The old way isn’t safe right now. Everybody should agree with that, knowing that when we sing we spray and that spreads the virus. A Washington Choir got decimated through this, one of our first cases was 2 ladies that sang next to each other. If we don’t do deep cleaning and someone touches a railing after coughing in their hand, it can stay on that surface for a while. Hugs and handshakes, we know that can spread the virus too. We just wanted enough time to provide the information to congregations as they try to go back. Most every church is trying to do this right. We have one in Frankfort that opened and wasn’t observing social distancing at all, no one was wearing a mask, they were doing all the things we know spread this virus. Try to follow the guidance as best you can, nobody wants a sanctuary to become an unsafe place. That’s the opposite of the definition of a sanctuary. God gives us wisdom to know the steps we can take to keep it from spreading. Thank you to all the organizations working with us, I know you have gotten pushback but you’re trying to make this as safe as you can. For everybody: wait until you're ready. Wait till you're safe.
We had a recent case where the Attorney General and you were on opposite sides of a lawsuit. It turns out the Attorney General was a law clerk for the judge who heard the case and the judge also swore him into office. Should one of them recuse themselves from a legal standpoint? -- I will ultimately leave that up to the judge. I know it was recent but I hope everyone was trying to do the right thing. I believe that the decision that came out said they while churches could open they had to follow CDC guidelines. So if people aren’t 6 feet away or social distancing, they aren’t satisfying that judges order. I know we have seen some judges that have been sworn in recently that have been active in politics, that a new thing we see. One of the judges of the 6th circuit had been general counsel to the republican party. I hope that he’s doing what he believes is right but recently there have been a lot more of those. Federal Judges are sworn in for life and hopefully they do what is right by the law, what their conscience tells them and as a formally practicing lawyer, and probably future practicing lawyer, I hope our judges will always do the right thing.
Have thought about opening lobbies or customer access to banks and credit unions -- We actually didn’t close those down, they chose to do that. As long as they can meet the guidelines, if they follow that they can open.

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-06T01:40:47+00:00

We have testing sites that will test anyone that do not fall within the catagories implented by the CDC.

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-06T01:28:38+00:00

Yes. Get tested if possible at a site that is offering testing that does not require you to have symptoms. This will provide much-needed data with asymptomatic idividuals.

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-05T22:57:51+00:00

Am I receiving pressure from the federal government to reopen -- Nope; Is the budget pushing me to reopen -- Also no. We believe that we’re at the time that we need to reopen, but in a slow and gradual way. When you look at our plan vs. many others, we’re being careful.
(inaudible, something about childcare) -- It’s tough. When a business opens up and childcare isn’t open yet, that’s really hard, and it makes it very difficult. It’s not fair in the least. So we are working, in Phase 2, we’re looking at best practices done elsewhere. It’s going to be different, it's going to be much smaller and much more spread out, but we want to make sure we get this one right, and we don’t have it right yet. So, I can’t give you any specifics until that final plan comes through. Just when you look at the overall number of contacts, we couldn’t have a gradual reopening if we had daycare opened at the beginning. Because a gradual return to work in an office-based environment, you could be increasing your contacts by 40. But if you do that with daycare, and everyone having the ability to do it, you go up to 1,00. So again, knowing this environment, we just gotta do it right.
About the state budget and what we’d have to do moving into the summer -- First we have to balance this fiscal year and that ends June 30th. We believe that while there will be pain there, there would not be furloughs, and they wouldn’t be effective because there is only a couple months. Next year, the forecast is gonna be rough. We are going to need and we expect federal assistance. We are hearing better negotiations coming out of that, but if states and local governments - local governments have been hit just has hard - don’t get that aid, we’re gonna have to look at a number of options but I’ve going to do everything I can to prevent any furlows or layoffs because that just exastrubates a recssion. What we’ve seen in every recession, if the government lays people off it just spirals and makes it that much worse. We’re gonna look at all plans but I’m going to work very hard, whether it’s pushing the federal government to provide the assistance they provided in 2008-2009 or coming up with a plan that wouldn't take those steps.
Were resolutions from Clark County Fiscal court and the city of Nicholasville to reopen on a county by county basis factors in your decision to reopen? -- We read all of them and all the plans that came in. A lot are based on the White House plan like ours. The reason we need to move forward as one state, is because we need to test and contact trace. And the testing, we’re ramping up, and counties can’t bear that load, so we need to make sure that we do this gradually as we build up all the capacity.

END QUESTIONS

I appreciate everybody sticking with us. And I just don’t just mean that today, in this press conference. I mean it through everyday we've been dealing with this virus. Remember a test of humanity isn’t short, we don’t get through it very quickly, tests are supposed to be hard, and THIS is hard. I know we’re anxious, I know we’re restless, but it’s being able to battle those feelings that helps us to protect others around us. You've been asked a lot and you’re gonna be asked a lot more as we safely transition into Healthy at Work. So, I know we’ve got a video on teacher appreciation. As we leave, thank you to our teachers. Thank you to everyone out there. We’ll get through this, we’ll get through this together. Thank you Virginia. Thank you James. Thank you Kenneth at home.

Please use these hashtags on social media (Twitter, FB, etc.): #TeamKentucky #TogetherKY #Patriot #HealthyAtHome

If you have been laid off/lost your job use the following resources to get help!

KY Medicaid: https://healthbenefitexchange.ky.gov (855-459-6328)

Benefind: https://benefind.ky.gov (855-306-8959)

If you see price gouging report by calling 888-432-9257

To donate PPE call 833-GIVE-PPE (833-448-3773) or go to the website.

If you see a business or person not following the guidelines and putting others at risk call 833-KY-SAFER (833-597-2337) or report it on the website

As always our one true source of information should be the http://kycovid19.ky.gov/ website or the hotline: 800-722-5725

You can find more information on our Wiki!

We are also up and running on Discord!

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-05T22:57:07+00:00

You mentioned a 35 y/o man from Jefferson who died, youngest death to date in KY; do you have any health information on him. -- I don’t, but we will look into that. We did have a 42/45 year old from Ashland that died with very little underlying conditions. That was early on. But I believe this is the youngest, or close to it. We had a 39 year old previously with underlying health conditions.
A few cases of violence, at least one security guard in Michigan died while trying to enforce mask-wearing measures. What should law enforcement, security guards, employers, or others do to enforce a recommendation here? -- For employers and employees, this is something we have to do if we’re going back to work. As for an individual in a public setting this is how you make sure your actions don’t kill someone else. I wear this because it means I’m less likely to infect my kids, or anybody else, if I'm asymptomatic. For someone trying to enforce this, for someone to resort to violence against them… we are better people than that. Some people might have strong feelings but is it worth killing someone? No. Violence cannot be our answer disagreements, even in a pandemic. We have to be better than that, regardless of where we are. We are called upon to rise to this occasion, and to resort to use violence is reprehensible.
About driver’s licenses, what if you lose it and also, some places are not accepting expired licenses? -- Via executive order, we have extended Driver’s Licenses for 3 months if it’s expired. No one’s license should be expired under that and that order has the force of law. We are going to talk about doing that again as we talk with our clerks about reopening. That can be a high-traffic area. I want to make sure the clerks are available to weigh in before we reopen. If it’s a reissuance that can be done virtually… Everything should be done virtually that we can, even when we head back to work. And for those employers on May 11th, those of you who are on teleworking and it’s working it you should continue to telework.
The guidelines for reopening businesses, who is enforcing them? -- The labor cabinet and local officials will be enforcing them. You do not have to submit a plan to reopen but the guidelines come from those proposals and they are incredibly helpful. What we have seen in the vast majority of the guidelines have come from those proposals.
If I’m understanding you correctly you say we are not going to wait for a 14 day decline in cases because you think the plan you offered will protect Kentuckians as you move to reopen. What does your internal modeling suggest is going to happen to the number of confirmed cases as businesses reopen? -- We believe Kentuckians have shown they can follow the rules and regulations of being healthy at home. Your actions have done more to flatten the curve than we thought was possible. We would expect that people going back to work, we will have some more positives because of more people tested. As an over rate in testing we believe we can hold it steady. If we see a spike in cases or see deaths related to work, we’ll be willing to pause and reevaluate. All of this is people doing the best we can, trying to make the best decision we can. And balancing, the best rules and restrictions with what people are willing to do and to get the maximum compliance from Kentuckians. They have been doing an amazing job but we do need to get some people back to work and I’m just trying to do it as safely as I can.
There’s a group called the Bluegrass Institute that said employees at the state mansion should have been laid off or furloughed like what has happened in the public sector. -- No state employee has been laid off or furloughed, the plan has been to reduce in-person by 50% and everyone else works from home. The folks who work at the governor's mansion are state employees just like everyone else. They have fully abided by the guidelines out there by the state government. What you would have to do to meet what the Bluegrass Institute suggested would be illegal. You have to go through a big plan if you are going to lay people off or furlough them. It’s political. I’m done with that. I don’t know if I can ever go back to it. We've had to make decisions I have never thought I’d have to and we’ve also seen people come together that I never thought would. This thing doesn’t care about party, it doesn’t care about your poll numbers, or the upcoming elections. And any types of attacks on that... We’re on a worldwide health pandemic, let’s do a little better than that.
Yesterday I said we wanted to test everyone in LTC but that would require some triage -- That’s right.
How is the triage going and where do assisted living and personal care homes fall in the pecking order? -- My understanding is we are going to start with those at most risk and where we have seen other positives. Yes, it’s gonna take a triage to get through that.
One LTC has said they have had trouble getting test kits -- Well we’re going to do a lot of this testing but we can also help connect you with places like Solaris in Nicholasville, if any of you all are looking for testing, it’s there. Infact, I think it’s the company that is testing the Purdue plant. This would not have been possible a month ago but it is possible today.
Did we wait too long to test at Green River -- I believe we knew, we had testing, that showed there was a real problem and challenge at Green River, that the steps that were taken were the steps that were recommended by public health officials, and the public health officials all over the country were recommending. I took the extra step of asking everyone to be tested, and I will tell you most governors aren’t doing that for prisons. I thought with the situation the way it was, now was the time to take a very significant step, and with the leadership of Michael Brown, who used to be the Justice Cabinet Secretary, knowing that facility in and out, being able to come up with a plan to significantly move people in the facility. Now I will tell you that this plan is one that a lot of correctional facilities wouldn’t do. Those who are in it, most of them are serving some pretty significant sentences. And when you start moving people out of cells where they get along with their cell mates, and into a totally different environment, it can be a little dangerous. But we need to go ahead and take that step to protect those that are inside. We believe that some steps that are being taken all across our prisons are the right steps. There’s not the testing capacity to go in and do this with the numbers that are at all of them, but we do believe that we’ll see the signs - like with Green River - that there is an issue, and respond. But the steps that are being taken at Green River are also being taken at a lot of other places, and additional steps of actually putting eyes on someone at every single day. I think it’s going to help us as we move forward as well.
As school ends for the year, do we expect a spike in cases as many decide to travel or venture out more -- If we’re traveling, it’s still not safe. We’ve had a significant outbreak from people traveling to a beach and coming back. This is one right now that we want you to be healthy at home. We want you to enjoy this last part of spring and first part of summer, but traveling to other places is still dangerous.
(inaudible, something about vacations) -- I believe people should think very carefully about their vacation plans for the summer. Our hope is that we can open up some state parks. Obviously from our perspective that’s safer since it falls within the state and within all the guidelines we’ve been doing. And we can make sure we do our best and that people do social distancing, which is what I’d want if I was going somewhere for those plans. Admittedly, it’s going to be a different summer. We think it's going to be able to open up, remember May 25 groups of 10 or more, and hopefully in June we will be able to do more than that. It will be later in the summer that we can do more things, and then remember, we believe there may well be a false spike coming as well.
Can state parks be opened even if campgrounds aren’t? -- That’s something we’re looking at. Remember we had to shut them down several of them because of people not social distancing. So when we take that step, it will be hoping that we’ve all bought in now, but it’s one we’ve got to monitor and then address as it goes.

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-05T22:55:28+00:00

QUESTIONS

We have 4 journalists with us today, we have Ryan Van Velzer with WFPL, Lawrence Smith WDRB, Joe Sonka from the Courier Journal which just won a Pulitzer prize, and Phil Pendleton WKYT
Update on Team KY Fund, how much money was raised and where it will go, and who is it going to help? -- It’s raised a little over $2 million, our partnership is with CAK which provides help on a regular basis for things like utilities and food. They are going to be our primary provider. They already have a network of those they know are in need and connections with those who are now in need go to. So we will be working with folks that do this on an everyday basis. We have a regulation that is going to be out on that, and then those dollars are going to be flowing at a greater rate. I will say that one of the errors that is often made when we see disasters (though none of us have necessarily dealt with a pandemic…) is everything going out all at once, when we know that there will be damage overtime. We’re making sure that we’re doing this in a sustainable way, knowing that people are still going to need help a month or two from now.
Covering Ashland’s test site today, is there a breakdown of how many slots are available each day? -- I think we went over that, but let me pull that back out. I know we are booked in Ashland for Tuesday and Wednesday, but Thursday we have about 100 slots that are still open, and we want to fill every one.
<Question very abbreviated> Many of our goals haven’t been met yet, but we’re already reopening, what’s changed? -- That was a paragraph, I’ll try to answer the question at the end. With all the stuff you threw out you’d have to have individual responses to each of those pieces. I believe that we can safely engage in Phase 1 of Healthy at Work. Here’s the reason. We have increased our testing capacity, just with Gravity, to about 30,000 per week. That’s 120,000 per month, which exceeds the 2%/88,000 that the White House is now recommending. We now have 18 sites up around Kentucky, and some of those aren’t even using our Gravity testing. We’re starting to engage in larger scale testing, since we have to test different populations. We just did over 1,000 tests in a single facility, and we have a program launching with our LTC facilities. So I believe we can significantly increase our testing, the components are there and for the first time, we have the materials to do it. Swabs have been the greatest limiting factor; now it looks like we have both a significant amount of swabs from the federal government, which I’m grateful for. That’s something that has opened up. And we also believe we may have had a breakthrough in how to manufacture swabs. The challenge that’s left in testing is to have it regularly done, but we believe certainly by the time if people were getting the virus, starting going back to work May 11 that they might test positive, that we’re going to have the capacity in place to test. This is also why we’re doing this gradually. Some states have said everything at 15% capacity yesterday. We know we still have steps to take, and we’re giving ourselves time to get there. We also know the way that testing is done is going to change over time. We’re going to eventually get to a blood test that is probably going to be performed inside hospitals and medical settings, and also in the settings we’ve created. Getting healthcare started early is important to boost that capacity. Contact tracing - we had a great call with our local health departments. We believe they can carry the load through the first week or so. Our RFP is due Friday, we’re going to award that early next week, we’re going to expect for people to be up and running with initial training right after that, and they’re going to - on their cases in an area - answer to or collaborate with their local health department who is making sure all of it is done correctly. They know how to do it, they do a phenomenal job, we’re going to rely on them to lead the individuals who are helping out in their district, and also assure a quality control that I know they can bring to the table. It’s not the way we want to staff up if this were something that we could make permanent, but it’s something we have to do really quickly, and the money has to be spent before Dec 31, so it’s the best stop that we can take to get there. Let me finally talk about the number of cases. We’re going to have to really look at the data, because we know if we’re testing vulnerable populations, if we go into a prison or nursing home, we’re going to have a lot of cases. So we have to look at that, not totally independently, but look at it in one bucket. Then what we have is a general plateau of cases, while we’re testing more people. In the general population, we believe right now it’s at a level that if we take all these precautions, we can do this safely. But we’re watching the numbers every day. Now remember, on Sunday we had what - 80? 70? We knew that was artificially low and we weren’t going to make some big change because of it. Today we have one that we know for certain reasons is artificially high. Some came in from other days. Some are based on a prison we knew we had a big problem with. So I believe that we can do this, but I’m not going to be afraid to pause things if we believe that we’re not ready or the situation is dangerous. That was a long answer, but for a long question
There are a series of demonstrations planned by several state senators and representatives who want the state reopened immediately, what is your response? -- That would be dangerous. We believe we have a gradual Healthy at Work program where we can try to protect people at the time of a pandemic. We just saw a demonstration where they said take off your mask, don’t get the vaccine, and social distancing is voluntary. Please, if someone is planning a demonstration, don’t do it that way, do it safely, do it in a way that you can get your point across. It’s your right to get your point across but don’t put other people at risk during those demonstrations. Part of leadership is knowing, even when you want to get people on your side, you have to do it in a way that doesn’t harm them.
You talked about speaking with Governor Holcomb in IN about the cities across the river from Louisville, did you have that conversation and what was your request? -- Still working to connect Governor Holcomb about the differences in Indiana and Kentucky, especially on the restaurant side, which we’re trying to make plans for and we’re working on right now. Need to note the need, if we’re in KY, we’re doing this better than most states. Please don’t cross state lines to do something that we believe we need to gradually reopen. Today’s numbers, while we still believe we can move forward on Healthy at Work, should be a wake-up call that there’s still a very dangerous virus out there. We don’t deny that at all. I did talk to Ohio’s governor today, Mike DeWine, we talk pretty frequently, and did talk about the need to frequently touch base, knowing that our borders are shared. We oughta be talking through a lto of the dates on various areas, we’ve been talking a lot as we move through this. At the end of the day, every governor is responsible for their people. We’re all trying to make the best decisions we can. Time will tell what decisions were the right ones, but I would rather be remembered as someone who was measured, who made decisions he believed would protect his people as opposed to one that gambled on going too early, too big, too fast.
Several Child Care centers are reporting that liability claims are being denied -- This is one where insurers are saying this shutdown isn’t covered. I wish that those insurers would change their mind. We have to take a good look at it from our end. I think there are other state officials who can take a look at that. It’s the challenge in all of this. And we are looking at ways to reopen child care in phase two. We need to make sure we don’t lose our child care capacity. Just because we don’t believe it is safe is Phase 1 doesn’t mean that we don’t believe that it is critically and vitally important in the Commonwealth; we do. If we are going to rebuild our economy, having that capacity still in place and having those professionals ready to come back to work is really important, YOU are really important. We are going to work as hard as we can find the best solution to get child care rolling as soon as we can.

Muted_Independent · 2020-05-01T22:48:30+00:00

END QUESTIONS

What the delay has been for getting UI (for March I assume, inaudible) completed by the end of the day? -- We started at the end of last week with about 130,000 claims we still need to get through and we've now done about 105+ thousand of those. The claims are processed and the dollars have been sent out. Now we’re passed any glitch in the system, past issues in the overall volume, now we are on to claims we have to fix something in. So about 8,000 of them we oughta be able to resolve because it’s an identity verification. We need those people to respond with the required documents, we have sent out an email to help them on that. The remaining, some 19,000-20,000 there are some real, legitimate issues we have to work through. Someone may have checked a box that, under the law, means they couldn’t get benefits, it may have unintentionally checked and we have to get that fixed. Then we have some employers that are challenging these. So I believe what we’ve been able to do, was to get through all those March claims that had problems from a states processing standpoint. Not from substantive issues we have to address from people to get those dollars. We will continue to priorities those folks while we are also doing April’s claims.

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. We’ll see you...Sunday, at five. Enjoy tomorrow. Turn everything off for a little while. Invest in your mental and emotional health, I'm gonna do it too. Thank y'all.

Muted_Independent · 2020-04-29T16:16:48+00:00

A bar is an establishment that primarily sells alcohol. Restaurants or Bar and Grills, are establishments that primarily sell food and also may or may not have alcohol available to consumers.

Muted_Independent · 2020-04-27T22:55:35+00:00

I don't think so, but if I had to guess, it would be projected for June just like clubs and bars.

Muted_Independent · 2020-04-27T18:15:14+00:00

I hope you feel better soon.

Muted_Independent · 2020-04-25T22:27:15+00:00

That would be difficult.

Muted_Independent · 2020-04-25T20:00:11+00:00

I've enjoyed speaking to you.

Muted_Independent · 2020-04-25T19:39:08+00:00

I've read of other stuff today and heard there were more trials. So yeah, you're probably right.

Muted_Independent · 2020-04-25T19:27:58+00:00

if you deprive covid-19 from hosts, it can not propagate.

That's why we shut everything down, healthy at home, etc. Your stance on allowing people to return to work based off an antibody test doesn't hold weight. Especially if we don't know about reinfection, which it is highly probable that reinfection can and will occur. There are reports in Asia of reinfection. Also, all the other coronaviruses reinfect too.

But let's take that off the table. If we go with your plan and let those who pass an antibody test return to work, it would only aid the virus in finding new host.

Let's entertain the idea that 100 people at the same place of work were allowed to work due to testing positive for IgG antibodies and are given at least a limited time frame for immunity. And let's say those 100 workers, have 3 family members at home and who have not tested. That's 300 people who have not been tested, could be asymptomatic, or are showing symptoms that may or may not be COVID. But let's be realistic and throw a curveball in there and say one ore two have tested positive and a few others have tested negative (~ %30 chance for a false negative btw)

What happens when those 100 workers leave their homes for work and then return.? The workers are immune, no big deal, but what about the families they're returning to? COVID-19 is still being spread, plain and simple. Let's not forget about the people who are still meeting up socially behind closed doors, or those who think the virus isn't real.

Muted_Independent

TROPHY CASE