KY Gov Calls Special Session Over “Dire” COVID Surge

The Lexington Courier-Journal reports:

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is calling for a special session of the General Assembly to address the commonwealth’s alarming rise in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

The session will begin Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the state Capitol in Frankfort.

Beshear’s call comes two weeks after the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled a lower court was wrong to block new laws limiting the scope of the governor’s emergency powers, giving the Republicans’ legislative supermajority a substantial say over any new policy measures to address the pandemic.

NBC News reports:

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said on Sunday that COVID-19 situation in the state was “dire” with a record number of hospitalizations amid soaring cases.

“We are setting case records, we have a record number of Kentuckyians in the hospital battling COVID in the ICU, battling for their lives. We have a record number of families that are praying for their loved one who is on a ventilator, needing that assistance to breathe,” Beshear said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

.@GovAndyBeshear on the Covid surge in Kentucky: “Our situation is dire.”

“Recent Supreme Court case and our legislature limit my ability to do some things like masking. If I had the ability to do it right now, we would have a masking order when you’re in public and indoors.” pic.twitter.com/qQe2rY9Gqy

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) September 5, 2021