FRANKFORT (May 14, 2021) – Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture Dr. Ryan Quarles issued the following statement after Governor Beshear’s latest COVID-19 announcement:

“With today’s announcement, the Governor has abandoned his vaccination goal but is still holding Kentucky hostage for another month. As result of his slow action, Kentucky will be one of the last states in our region to fully reopen.

His slow-walking of this decision is just the latest in a series that puts him out of step with other leaders around the nation and people across our state: sending police officers to track churchgoers on Easter Sunday, closing down businesses without speaking to them, ignoring science and CDC guidance on schools, disregarding laws passed by our legislature, and freezing out other constitutional officers.

For months, Kentucky has lost workers to other states and our people have been traveling to Tennessee and Indiana to enjoy their restaurants, while ours have remained at a fraction of their capacity, despite any public contract tracing information to suggest they were the source of coronavirus spread. By not lifting the mask mandate immediately, the Governor throws the burden of enforcing mask compliance onto our businesses to try to figure out who and who isn’t vaccinated. He should eliminate the mask mandate immediately, like Tennessee and Indiana have.

We know a lot more about this disease than we did a year ago. We need full capacity now to support our small businesses.”