Universal indoor masking will be required at all Daviess County and Owensboro public schools as well as Owensboro Catholic schools. The districts made the joint announcement Wednesday afternoon. All three school systems are still scheduled to begin the year in-person on Aug. 11.
Masks will be required for all students and staff at all indoor school functions regardless of vaccination status. This requirement will be in place indefinitely.
A video message from superintendents Matt Robbins (DCPS), Matthew Constant (OPS) and David Kessler (OCS) can be viewed here.
Updated reopening plans can be viewed here: DCPS; OPS; OCS (the OCS plan has not yet been updated to reflect the new mask policy).
The three districts on July 16 made a joint announcement that masks would be optional for all students and staff, unless directly ordered by state officials. Later that day the three superintendents discussed the districts’ unified approach to reopening this school year.
There has not yet been a mandate at the state or federal level, though universal masking in K-12 schools has been recommended at both levels.
On July 26, Gov. Andy Beshear issued “strong” recommendations about when Kentucky school systems should require masks for the upcoming year (at the time he recommended masking for anyone who was unvaccinated), though no mandates were given. Kentucky Department of Education officials also said that day they planned to let each district decide how their schools will operate this fall.
Beshear said at the time a mandate was “not off the table” but thought the state would “see enough buy-in and enough results to where that is not necessary.”
On July 27, the CDC announced new recommendations for wearing masks in public indoor settings — including universal masking for all staff, students and visitors to K-12 schools. Beshear later updated his recommendation to universal masking regardless of vaccination status.
The day of the CDC announcement, officials with DCPS, OPS and OCS said they were still monitoring the situation and reviewing their options. Green River District Health Department Director Clay Horton said at the time he did not agree with the current plan of optional masking in local schools, and encouraged superintendents to consider any guidelines the CDC announced.
“I am highly concerned about (the plans for optional mask-wearing),” Horton said at the time. “If we have lots of people in a building together, all day long, without masks, with the transmission rates that we’re seeing, we’re gonna see this get a lot worse.”
While Robbins, Constant and Kessler had hoped cases would stabilize following their masking announcement last month, cases have instead risen exponentially over the past few weeks, with local officials calling the increase “alarming,” a “substantial rise,” and a “dramatic surge.”
On July 22 — two months after it was taken down — the tent outside Owensboro Health Regional Hospital was put back up as a proactive measure after the uptick in COVID-19 cases.
The Green River District Health Department, Owensboro Health, Daviess County Fiscal Court, the City of Owensboro officials on July 26 issued a joint statement about their concern in the rapid rise in COVID-19 infections.
The next day, those same officials discussed how the Delta variant was in Owensboro and that most cases were among those not vaccinated — so they continued to urge the community to get the vaccine.
Also on July 27, a joint video message from Robbins, Constant and Kessler was released regarding the rise in COVID cases and the importance of getting vaccinated.
According to the latest update on Tuesday from the Health Department, only 45.98% of Daviess County’s population has been vaccinated.
The current incident rate — the 7-day average of new cases per 100,000 people per day — was 38.842. The current 7-day average for new cases in the seven-county Green River District was 94.9 new cases per day. All seven counties are now areas of high transmission.
As reported Tuesday by GRDHD, the district’s totals to date were:
- Reported cases: 24,399 (11,489 for Daviess)
- Currently hospitalized: 28 (18 for Daviess)
- Ever hospitalized: 979 (389 for Daviess)
- Deaths: 417 (191 for Daviess)
