Governor Beshear reported Tuesday more than two million people have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine in Kentucky. The governor said COVID cases have declined for three straight weeks. The positivity rate has fallen as well.
During the briefing, Beshear was asked if he feels his overall popularity has fallen during the pandemic. “I made peace early on that I wasn’t gonna make one political decision during this and we were going to base everything on life and death and the science and whether that means popularity has increased or decreased, whether it will help or hurt me in the future in staying in this job. That’s just not how you can approach a pandemic,” said Beshear.
Beshear said the age group 10 to 19 has the highest incidence rate of new COVID infections. The governor noted during March through April 97% of those testing positive for the virus were unvaccinated.
Governor Beshear said he’s not ready to pull the plug on federal supplemental unemployment checks. But the governor continues to say the distribution of jobless benefits may not continue throughout the summer. “Now that doesn’t mean we necessarily keep them all the way through September. It means we’ve got to thread the needle to make sure that we do not shock our system too early because there’ve already been some reports from economists about what could happen if that was the case,” explained Beshear.
Beshear noted $34 million in federal unemployment comes to the Commonwealth each week. He added that money is spent in groceries, other retail outlets, and restaurants. During his COVID briefing, Beshear reported 580 new cases, which he said was the lowest count on a Tuesday in five months. Five additional deaths were also reported.
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