FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — Five years ago today, Kentucky confirmed its first case of COVID-19, marking the beginning of a public health crisis that drastically altered life for residents across the state.
Thursday afternoon, Governor Andy Beshear led a ceremony at the state Capitol to honor the lives lost.
During the ceremony, music filled the Capitol as the state paid tribute to the 20,450 Kentuckians who have died due to the virus. “In the end, we all lost someone to COVID. We all lost many people to COVID,” Beshear said.
Beshear recalled March 6, 2020, the day Kentucky reported its first COVID-19 case. He described how he was walking home to spend time with family when he received the call.
"It changed everything," he said.
Just months into his new role, the governor reflected on the swift response from health departments and hospitals and the terrifying projections of how many Kentuckians could be impacted. “More than we lost in WWI, WWII, Vietnam and the Korean Wars put together,” Beshear noted. “You don’t suffer that level of loss without feeling it deeply.”
In the first two and a half years of the pandemic, nearly 2 million Kentuckians contracted the virus, with some weeks proving particularly devastating. Dr. Steven Stack recounted the peak of the Delta variant wave, during which 460 Kentuckians died within a single week.
The introduction of vaccines brought hope, but distributing them posed significant logistical challenges. “Once life-saving vaccines were available, getting them to people became the toughest logistics challenge that our country faced since WWII,” Beshear said.
Beshear commended the urgent measures taken to establish drive-thru testing and the efforts to get students back in the classroom. He also recognized the courage of healthcare workers who faced daily risks while caring for COVID patients. “Every day they walked into fuller COVID wings knowing that this virus could come home with them,” Beshear said.
As Kentucky remembers this pivotal moment in history, Beshear vowed to honor those lives lost on every anniversary moving forward.
