Although hard to enforce, Beshear limiting travel

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WTVQ) – Gov. Andy Beshear is encouraging people to limit travel out of state except for certain circumstances and those who do travel  should self-quarantine for 14 days once they return.

Of the travel orders, the exceptions in the governor’s order are family health emergencies, job, court orders, and needs such as groceries and medications.

“Don’t go to another state for a pedicure or your favorite barber. And if you have gone out of state for spring break, come back and self quarantine for two weeks.

He admitted it will be difficult to enforce, but he is willing to take tougher steps to do so if it becomes necessary.

He said he still will consider, if necessary, shutting down the borders from other folks. But he added Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is about to issue some new, more restrictive orders on businesses.

He has signed SB 150, which is the Legislature’s measure to address a number of coronavirus issues. That happened at about 4 p.m. Monday.  The bill, which was fast-tracked by lawmakers, offers relief to workers and employers suffering economic damage from the pandemic.  The measure includes relaxing access to unemployment insurance.  It also prevents a business owner’s unemployment insurance rate from being impacted by layoffs due to the virus.

On unemployment benefits, the state added 120 people to the phone lines Monday and those numbers will continue to increase every day to catch up.

Beshear also said he had “good conversations” with Lowe’s, Home Depot and some other large retailers about monitoring and controlling crowds after widespread problems with social distancing and other issues that could lead to the spread of the coronavirus.

“We got some very positive response and we expect to see some positive steps,” Beshear said. “I said we have to get better than what we are seeing in certain stores.”

The steps range from different waiting periods to different check out options and limiting the number of customers in the store. Staff also will be more active in advising customers, Beshear said.

“I found it responsive,” he continued, noting the state also has phone numbers to call to try to get immediate response.

Meanwhile, Amazon will reopen its distribution center in Shepherdsville on Wednesday and it has met the state’s requests for testing, cleaning and other precautions.

The state has 18,500 hospital beds and hopes to expand that by 10 percent and convert some to ICU beds. The state also has 1,300 ICU beds and 1,352 ventilators, all of which are being increased. The state also is making plans to turn hotels into hospitals and even make a massive location at the fairgrounds in Lexington, but those steps are in different phases of planning in case the state sees a dramatic spike in cases.

He also said he is not ready to make a decision on keeping schools closed until April 30 since the President has extended social-distancing until then. Kentucky schools currently are scheduled to stay closed until April 17 and reopen on April 20.

“We want and need a couple of more days to see how things proceed before we make that decision on schools,” Beshear said.