Gov. Beshear Plans To Begin Phased Restart Of Economy On Monday

“We are very close to coming to a consensus and an agreement in being able to put out guidelines for the gradual reopening of many of our hospital and health care services."

(Frankfort, Ky.) – Yesterday, Governor Andy Beshear announced that the phased restart of Kentucky’s economy will begin next Monday, April 27, with a segment of the health care services industry.

Gov. Beshear says that the initial ease of restrictions will allow diagnostic and radiology testing, as well as non-urgent, emergent, in-person office and ambulatory visits.

“We are very close to coming to a consensus and an agreement in being able to put out guidelines for the gradual reopening of many of our hospital and health care services,” Gov. Beshear said. “We will be moving from this phase to others. Health care is a good and important place to start some of our reopening.”

The Governor says that Kentucky will experience three phases when dealing with coronavirus, including sacrifice, planning, and patience and perseverance. Beshear says that Kentucky is currently in the planning and patience phase.  

“Whether it is shuttering a business temporarily, or if it’s that you’re not going to work right now because of what has happened with this virus,” he said. “Whether it is changes to your life, your children not going to school, we have shown that we can pass the test of sacrifice.”

Next week, the first phase will be to reopen health care service under the Healthy at Work initiative to help businesses to safely reopen.  

This initiative has set public health benchmarks for reopening Kentucky’s economy. These benchmarks directly align with the White House’s Guidelines for Reopening America.

Governor Beshear says that to meet these requirements, a "massive" scaling up of testing capacity in the commonwealth is needed.