Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear to Mandate Masks in All K-12 Schools

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear signed a mask mandate into effect on Tuesday, requiring all schools statewide to require masks on all staff and students.

Under the new mandate, anyone inside a Kentucky child care facility or school, pre-k included, will be required to wear a mask regardless of their vaccination status.

"This is how we make sure we protect our children, but this is also how we make sure that they stay in school," Beshear said Tuesday afternoon.

According to the Courier-Journal, dozens of Kentucky's school districts are scheduled to start school on Wednesday morning, so the mask mandate comes just in time.

Beshear also highlighted that Kentucky is in the midst of one of the fastest surges of COVID-19 cases yet, and on Monday he announced 1,301 new COVID-19 cases, and the total number of cases in the state hit 500,267.

And as all states across the country are ravaged by the new Delta variant, children—especially those unable to receive the vaccine—have seen an increase in hospitalizations.

COVID-19 is "hitting kids in a way that we haven't seen before," Beshear said.

Norton Children's Hospital in Louisville has seen an uptick in children admissions in the last week alone. On Tuesday, the hospital recorded 10 pediatric patients with COVID-19, four in intensive care and two on ventilators.

"The vast majority of patients that are requiring hospitalization are those unvaccinated patients," said Charlotte Ipsan, chief administrative office for Norton Women's and Children's Hospital. "We continue to stress that vaccination continues to be our number one fight against hospitalization, against this COVID rate."

"Kids are not immortal," Kentucky Children's Hospital Physician in Chief Dr. Scottie Day said, "It should be rare that a child would need to go to the hospital."

According to the Courier Journal, several school districts disregarded the governor's pushes for all school districts to require masks, wishing to leave the decision up to the students' parents.

"I'm going to have the courage to do what I know is right to protect our children," Beshear said on Tuesday.

Multiple school districts had implemented their own mandates prior to the governor's announcement. In Warren County, Superintendent Rob Clayton announced on Monday night masks would be required after roughly 700 students and staff went into quarantine less than a week before the school year was to begin.

Beshear stated on Tuesday that "without intervention," the state of Kentucky is on track to see its highest number of hospitalizations in the entire pandemic in two weeks, reported the Courier Journal.

"We are at an alarming place," Beshear said.

Newsweek reached out to the Kentucky Department for Public Health for additional comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.