Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) imposed yet another mask mandate, this time on all public and private schools, but it seems as though masks do not stop the spread of COVID-19. It looks like we can count on yet another wasted school year. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Ky. superintendent closes schools due to COVID-19: ‘This will be a tough year.’

By Valarie Honeycutt Spears | August 16, 2021 07:40 AM

Lee County Public Schools will be closed Monday through Wednesday after a surge in COVID-19 cases, Superintendent Sarah Wasson said.

The district in Beattyville is one of the first in Kentucky to shut down this school year as a result of the coronavirus.

“This will be a tough year and we don’t want to have to shut down this early, but if we can determine who is positive now we believe we can stay in school longer,” Wasson said in a statement released Sunday night.

There’s more at the original.

Interestingly enough, the article was originally entitled “COVID-19 shuts down Lee County Public Schools for three days,” or at least that’s what the browser tab says. I guess that by not revealing to readers in the headline that it was in small, poor, rural Lee County, far from Lexington, the editors think more people will open the story to read it.

How much of an epidemic is this?

She said one kindergarten student, one first-grader, and one student in 4th grade have tested positive and the students who were within 6 feet for more than 15 minutes of those students have been contacted and asked to quarantine. Five staff members in the district have tested positive.

So, the students who were not ‘socially distant’ from the three infected students — which must mean: their entire classes, though the article does not specify that — have been asked to quarantine, and, though not specified in the story, that will mean their entire families.

“If your child does test positive for COVID, please call the central office as soon as you get the results so we can work to determine if others will have to quarantine,” Wasson told families in the statement. “Keeping communication between families and the school will be key to us being able to remain open this school year.”

Let’s have another destroyed educational and economic year!

It has been 9½ weeks now, and the state Supreme Court has still not announced its decision on the Governor’s lawsuit to overturn the restrictions on his power passed by the General Assembly. In Kentucky, the constitution can be amended with a 60% majority in both houses of the General Assembly, which would require 60 state representatives and 23 state senators, at which point the amendment would be placed on the general election ballot the next time legislators are up for election, which would be 2022. There are 75 Republicans in the state House, and 30 in the state Senate. The legislature needs to put the restrictions passed in the 2021 session on the ballot as state constitutional amendments, to prevent the state Supreme Court from siding with our idiotic Governor again.