Here in Kentucky we're now topping 5,400 new cases of COVID-19 daily, and there seems to be no end in sight. Hospitals in the state, especially in the rural west and east, are facing critical staffing, supply, and oxygen shortages as ICU beds increasingly maxed out due to unvaccinated COVID patients.
Officials with Kentucky hospitals and nursing homes appealed for help Thursday from state lawmakers to fight the coronavirus pandemic that is overwhelming their facilities.
The officials primarily raised concerns about staffing shortages. A nursing home official said the closure of some nursing homes in the state is possible without help, noting that a nursing home in Oldham County already has closed because of COVID-19.
State legislators are preparing for a special session on COVID-19 that could begin early next week. Gov. Andy Beshear has said he wants to call a special session soon due to a recent Kentucky Supreme Court decision last month that said COVID-19 emergency measures need legislative approval, not just the governor’s say.
Members of the legislature’s Health and Welfare committees heard nearly three hours of testimony Thursday on steps to deal with the pandemic.
Senate Health and Welfare Chair Ralph Alvarado, R-Winchester, told the hospital and nursing home officials that they can expect funding to help retain and recruit nurses, aides, respiratory therapists and EMS personnel.
Alvarado, a physician, also said the legislature will look at expanding what paramedics can do in hospitals, proving more rapid testing of COVID-19 for hospitals and nursing homes, finding ways to administer more treatment for the virus, helping certain health-related boards to recruit retired people to help, and extending liability protection.
Nancy Galvagni, president of the Kentucky Hospital Association, gave the lawmakers some grim statistics about Kentucky hospitals and the pandemic.
She said COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state are at a record high, growing from just over 500 patients at the end of July to 2,267 on Sept. 1.
COVID-19 patients are now occupying one-half of all intensive care unit beds in the state, she said, adding that as of Wednesday, there were only 135 open and staffed ICU beds statewide.
Many hospitals are postponing medically necessary procedures, such as knee replacements, hernia repairs and certain cancer treatments, said Galvagni.
Kentucky Republicans can do whatever they want to, as they can simply override any Beshear veto with a simple majority in both the state House and Senate, and control two-thirds of the House and nearly 75% of the Senate. The question is what the KY GOP will decide on doing. They control 100% of the state's COVID response now, and they passed the very laws making that the case.
Meanwhile more than 10% of Kentucky school districts have already closed at least one day this year after being overwhelmed by COVID in the first weeks of the 2021 school year. And nobody's wearing masks here.
Nobody.
At Thursday's meeting, testimony also focused on masks in child care centers, vaccines and immunity to COVID-19 as lawmakers continued to map out ideas for the possible session.
Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Paducah, led the child care discussion, saying he's working on a proposed bill to clarify how child care centers would operate "as we move forward with the pandemic."
While the bill is a "work in progress," Carroll said he anticipates proposing changes that include giving families and day care owners more control over operations at centers.
Most were closed temporarily at the start of the pandemic under emergency orders by the Beshear administration and, when allowed to reopen, did so with strict requirements on capacity, staffing, masks and other measures.
Much of the child care discussion focused on current state rules requiring masks for children age 2 or older in child care programs.
Carroll brought as a witness Jennifer Washburn, owner of iKids child care center in Benton, who said masks present a problem for younger children at her center.
The children, especially 2-year-olds, take off the masks, throw them away, take masks off other children or chew on or play with them, Washburn said.
"Teacher are continually struggling with keeping the masks on the faces of our toddlers, our 2-year-olds," she said. "It has become increasingly more difficult to become the enforcer, especially of our 2s and 3s, of mask wearing."
Carroll, CEO of Easterseals West Kentucky, oversees a child care center and said he questions the benefit of requiring masks for the youngest children.
"The children simply aren't wearing them properly, and they take them off throughout the day,"' Carroll said.
A few members on the committee appeared to share Carroll's concerns about masks, including Rep. Danny Bentley, R-Russell.
Bentley, a pharmacist, questioned whether masks are effective against microscopic viruses and whether they can actually spread COVID-19 by accumulating germs.
"Most of masks are made in China," Bentley said. "Are we guaranteeing these masks are pure?
So nothing will be done, and everyone will blame Beshear, and he'll be replaced by a lunatic Republican in 2023, but by then there won't be a lot of things in Kentucky, like working hospitals, open schools, civil rights, or women's bodily autonomy, or bridges, so really it's all for the best.
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