During his weekly update, Governor Andy Beshear and Public Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack addressed wide-ranging and sweeping changes in COVID-19 guidance per the Center for Disease Control — as cases and testing positivity continue to rapidly wane across the country and the Commonwealth.
Beshear noted while coronavirus death rates still remain too high — including 98 more attributed to the “Delta” variant this past weekend — new reported cases fell to less than 3,000 over the last three days, and that testing positivity rate has plummeted to 8.56%.
Furthermore, less than 1,000 remain in the state’s hospitals dealing with COVID-19, with hospitalizations, ICU use and ventilators all decelerating.
As of March 1, Beshear said state government will be transitioning from required to optional masking, as well as for visitors in executive branch buildings, offices and while using in-state vehicles when another employee is present.
This doesn’t apply to congregate care-type facilities, including Veterans Affairs, state nursing homes, corrections facilities, and the like. Beshear said those decisions would come soon.
Beshear also said he expected many, including himself, to continue masking in key situations.
The state still has more than 350 National Guardsmen and Guardswomen serving in hospitals and food banks, and Beshear said that dismissal could come as early as March 15.
Now heading into year three of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stack said new guidance arrived from the CDC on February 25 — and with considerable changes.
First and foremost, Stack said the metrics are changing at the national level. Instead of using “new cases in a community” and “test positivity rate” estimating group disease transmission, CDC officials will now be using three different keys for a new transmission algorithm:
1) the number of new admissions over a seven-day period
2) percent of patients are COVID-19 positive in hospitals
3) number of new cases in a specific county
With vaccines, testing and treatment readily available, Stack also noted that the state’s COVID-19 website will be transitioning to the new CDC guidelines over the next 2-to-3 days — and the colors of green, yellow and red will be indicating and activating new rubrics.
Among one of the more impacting changes coming: school transportation. It’s something Stack said school districts would be discussing in the next two weeks.
Stack also noted there are some common-sense notions one should adhere to when it comes to COVID-19 transmission.
For more information on this nuanced guidance, visit https://govstatus.egov.com/kycovid19.
