The day after Governor Andy Beshear set down new restrictions in accordance with White House guidance, he announced 532 new COVID-19 cases in the Commonwealth Tuesday.
Those new numbers puts the overall total at 28,106, and Governor Andy Beshear says that’s why they’ve gone ahead and acted quickly with the restrictions—which include closing bars and limiting restaurants to 25 percent indoor capacity—to stop the escalation while they can.
He says they may already be seeing previous actions, including a face mask mandate, have an impact on the numbers, due to the last two days being lower so far than cases last week.
The Governor called Tuesday’s update a positive one, and he’s hopeful this could be a sign of flattening the curve, though it is too early to draw conclusions. With 599,251 Kentuckians having been tested, the positivity rate is now at 5.08 percent, the first time it has decreased in the last few days. Ten more Kentuckians have died, including three individuals from Logan County, putting the overall total since the pandemic began at 719.
Governor Beshear says he fully expects for restaurants to go back to 50 percent capacity in two weeks and that they’ll see a real positive impact from the mask mandate soon—he says some peaks in cases can be expected, but he would like for most of the cases to stay level. He also says it’s very likely that the mask mandate will be extended, though he doesn’t know what the particulars will look like.
The Tennessee Department of Health is reporting another 2,555 new cases there from Monday to Tuesday, putting the total there at 99,044.