Month: August 2021

Air quality alert issued, temperatures to rise to 82 today

National Weather Service graphic

An air quality alert has been issued for Wyandotte County on Tuesday, and temperatures today may rise to a high near 82, according to the National Weather Service.

Air quality will remain poor through Tuesday because of the effect of wildfire smoke spread across the region, the weather service said.

The Mid-America Regional Council issued the air quality alert. The alert originates from numerous fires across northwestern North America.

MARC recommends that individuals consider limiting strenuous outdoor physical activities today to reduce the effects of adverse health effects. Those who may be especially sensitive to the effects of elevated levels of pollutants include the very young, and those with pre-existing respiratory problems such as asthma or heart disease. Those with symptoms should consider consulting their personal physician.

People with heart-related or respiratory illness should remain indoors, the weather service said.

Temperatures will increase with humidity on the rise by late week into the weekend and early next week, according to the weather service.

Heat index values between 100 degrees F to 105 degrees F are expected this weekend into early next week, the weather service said.

There will be a slight chance of showers on Thursday, according to the weather service.

Today, there will be widespread haze before 11 a.m., the weather service said. It will be sunny early, then partly sunny, with the higih near 82. A calm wind will become east northeast around 6 mph in the afternoon.

Tonight, there could be widespread haze before midnight, with a low of 61, according to the weather service. An east wind around 6 mph will become calm in the evening.

Wednesday, it will be sunny, with a high near 85, and a calm wind will become southeast around 6 mph in the afternoon, the weather service said.

Wednesday night, there is a 20 percent chance of showers between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., then a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after 4 a.m., according to the weather service. The low will be around 67 with a south southeast wind of 6 mph.

Thursday, there is a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 1 p.m., the weather service said. The high will be near 86 with a south southeast wind of 6 to 10 mph.

Thursday night, it will be partly cloudy, with a low of 70, according to the weather service.

Friday, it will be sunny with a high near 93, the weather service said.

Friday night, it will be mostly clear, with a low of 76, according to the weather service.

Saturday, it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 96, the weather service said.

Saturday night, it will be partly cloudy, with a low of 80, according to the weather service.

Sunday, it will be sunny and hot, with a high near 97, the weather service said.

Sunday night, it will be partly cloudy, with a low of 79, according to the weather service.

Monday, it will be mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 97, the weather service said.

Doctors hope to see increase in COVID vaccinations

With a surge in COVID cases in central Missouri and the Kansas City area, doctors at the University of Kansas Health System are hoping it provides a motivation for more people to get their vaccines.

“We need to have our masks back on,” Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at KU Health System, said Monday morning. “We can bend this curve. We need to putour masks back on and make sure folks get vaccinated. What we’re seeing is all of us can spread the disease.”

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control, said COVID rates in the Springfield area are going up again. No one wants to go back to the days of hospitals overflowing with COVID cases.

“That has been happening to them now,” he said, “but we know how to stop it. Hopefully this is an impetus to everyone who wants to get vaccinated.”

On Monday morning, Dr. Damien Stevens, critical care physician, recalled what it was like in New York at the beginning of the pandemic, when he went to help doctors on the front lines. The streets and public transportation were deserted. The intensive care nurse to patient ratio at hospitals went from one to one, to one to eight. More than 80 percent of the patients in the hospitals there were being treated for COVID.

He found it sad that while they used to worry about having enough masks, now they have a preventive vaccine that a significant part of the population won’t take.

Dr. Stevens is concerned that what happened in New York at the start of the pandemic is now happening with the surge in Missouri hospitals and will soon happen in the Kansas City area unless more people are vaccinated.

COVID rates quadrupled last month in the Kansas City area because of the Delta variant, Dr. Stites said.

Kansas City, Missouri, on Monday added restrictions requiring masks in indoor public spaces. This follows the recommendation of the CDC.

If the community doesn’t make the choice now to bend the curve, it may face difficult choices down the road, according to Dr. Stites. Those consequences might include delaying some care because the emergency rooms are full.

“This is not a political issue, this is a medical issue,” he said.

Dr. Hawkinson recommended getting vaccines, as well as masking in school in the fall, and social distancing.

Free vaccines available

Free COVID-19 vaccines will be available from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday at the Kmart vaccination site, 7836 State Ave., Kansas City, Kansas. Vaccines are free for people ages 12 and older. There are gifts available, as supplies last.

For more information on the Unified Government Health Department’s vaccine schedule, see WycoVaccines.org.


Mobile vaccines can still be requested online at WycoVaccines.org or by calling 3-1-1 (913-573-5311).

Other sites available for vaccinations

Free vaccinations at KU Health System are open to the public. Current patients may use MyChart to make an appointment. Others may call 913-588-1227 or visit kansashealthsystem.com/vaccine to make an appointment to get vaccinated. KU Health System currently is vaccinating residents of Kansas and Missouri who are 12 or older, by appointment only. Those under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian throughout the appointment.

There are also pharmacies giving free COVID-19 vaccinations in Wyandotte County by appointment, when available. These include Price Chopper and Hen House pharmacies, which are now also accepting walk-in vaccinations or appointments, and are starting vaccinations for age 12 and up at those pharmacies that are giving Pfizer vaccine (see https://www.ballsfoodspharmacy.com/).

CVS has announced walk-in appointments for COVID-19 vaccine at some of its stores. Those interested in getting a vaccination at a CVS pharmacy are asked to visit a CVS website in order to make sure there is vaccine available. The website is at www.cvs.com/. Walgreens and Walmart also were listed on www.vaccines.gov as giving vaccinations.

Other pharmacies and sites giving vaccines are listed at www.vaccines.gov. The website also tells whether vaccines are in stock at the locations.

Case numbers reported

Higher numbers of COVID-19 patients were reported Monday morning at the University of Kansas Health System. There were 38 active COVID-19 patients on Monday morning, an increase of three from Friday, according to Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at the KU Health System. Fifteen patients were in the intensive care unit, a decrease of two from Friday. Nine were on ventilators, no change from Friday. Another 14 patients were hospitalized because of COVID-19 but were out of the acute infection phase, a decrease of four from Friday. There were 52 total COVID patients, a decrease of one from Friday.

Wyandotte County reported a cumulative 20,247 cases on Monday, an increase of 211 since Friday, according to the Unified Government Health Department’s COVID-19 webpage. There was a cumulative total of 308 deaths reported, an increase of two since Friday.

On Wednesday, July 28, the Unified Government Health Department reported that 40.93 percent of Wyandotte County residents had received at least one dose of vaccine. Those completing their vaccinations totaled about 35.12 percent.
The percentage of Wyandotte County residents who were age 12 and older who had received at least one dose was 50.4 percent.

The Mid-America Regional Council’s COVID-19 dashboard reported 176,532 cumulative COVID-19 cases on Monday in the Kansas City region. The daily average of new hospitalizations was 115.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported 334,636 cumulative COVID-19 cases in Kansas on Monday, Aug. 2, an increase of 1,703 since Friday, July 30. There was a total of 5,266 cumulative deaths reported statewide, an increase of 11 since July 30.

The KDHE reported 63,484 cumulative COVID-19 cases in Johnson County on Aug. 2, an increase of 337 since July 30. Leavenworth County had 8,027 cases, an increase of 77 since July 30. Sedgwick County (the Wichita area) reported 60,200 cases, an increase of 290 since July 30.

The Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard on Monday night reported 35,131,393 COVID-19 cases in the United States, with 613,679 total deaths reported nationwide. There were 25,141 new cases nationwide.

Countries with new cases rising were India, 40,134; Iran, 32,511; Indonesia, 30,738; U.S, 25,141; and United Kingdom, 23,860; according to Johns Hopkins information.


Vaccine doses reported administered in the United States Monday, 816,203 . Fifty percent of the U.S. population was fully vaccinated.
Vaccines administered: California, 134.740; Florida, 78,119; Texas, 76,792; Pennsylvania, 63,593; and New York, 47,591.

Free testing available

Free COVID-19 testing is available from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday at the UG Health Department’s central location, the former Kmart, 7836 State Ave., Kansas City, Kansas. Free gift cards are available to those who get a test, while supplies last.

Besides Health Department sites, COVID-19 testing is available at several locations in Wyandotte County.

Testing will be available from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Vibrant Health Cordell Meeks Jr. Clinic, formerly Children’s Mercy West, 4313 State Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.

Visit gogettested.com/Kansas and https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/pages/what-to-do-if-you-think-you-have-covid-19 for more sites.

Wyandotte County residents may contact the Health Department at wycohelp.org to sign up for a test to be delivered to their home.

For more details about free COVID-19 testing offered by the UG Health Department, visit https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/pages/what-to-do-if-you-think-you-have-covid-19, https://www.facebook.com/UGHealthDept or call 3-1-1.

The Health Department’s general contact page is at https://www.wycokck.org/Health/Contact.aspx. The department’s Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/UGHealthDept.

Testing sites are at https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/pages/what-to-do-if-you-think-you-have-covid-19. There are more test sites listed on this page.

The University of Kansas Health System’s media update is at https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/4123280777768454.

The University of Kansas Health System COVID-19 update page is at https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/330310795391910.

The KDHE’s COVID-19 webpage is at https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/.

The KC Region COVID-19 Hub dashboard is at https://marc2.org/covidhub/.

The Wyandotte County page on the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 website is at https://bao.arcgis.com/covid-19/jhu/county/20209.html.

The Johns Hopkins Data in Motion, a presentation on critical COVID-19 data in the past 24 hours, is at https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/covid-19-daily-video.

Conflict emerges prior to launch of August public hearings on redistricting in Kansas

GOP compresses 14 town halls into five days, instead of four months

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Republican-led committees of the Kansas Legislature plan to pack into five days the 14 town hall meetings offering opportunities for the public to share ideas on redrawing boundaries of congressional, legislative and state education board districts during the 2022 session.

House and Senate redistricting committee members intend to start the roadshow at 9 a.m. Aug. 9 in Manhattan at the Kansas State University student union and conclude at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 13 at the School of Business at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. In between, there would be stops in Hays, Salina, Colby, Dodge City, Chanute, Garden City, Hutchinson, Wichita, Overland Park, Pittsburg, Leavenworth and Kansas City.

In 2011, the bipartisan joint House and Senate committees on redistricting spread the same number of town halls in the same cities across July, August, September and October.

The full House and Senate and Republican Gov. Sam Brownback failed to agree on new political maps in 2012, compelling a panel of federal judges to set boundaries still in place. Resetting districts for the upcoming decade must be based on U.S. Census population reports. The majority party in the Capitol typically holds sway over a process that could be more volatile in 2022 than in 2012, because Kansas has a Democratic governor with Laura Kelly as opposed to Brownback the Republican.

Thoughtful or hasty?

On Sunday, Senate Vice President Rick Wilborn, R-McPherson, and Rep. Chris Croft, R-Overland Park, issued a statement defending their listening-tour strategy. These lawmakers, who chair the Senate and House redistricting committees, said the Kansas Legislative Research Department “deserved accolades” for putting the tour schedule together.

They said the goal was to provide a chance for Kansans in every corner of the state to provide input into the redistricting process. They also denounced skepticism expressed by Democrats and organizations about the schedule.

“It is no surprise, but still disappointing, that the Democrats were ready with press releases to politicize the process,” said Sen. Wilborn and Rep. Croft. “By attacking what amounts to a calendar, Kansas Democrats demonstrate they would have leveled criticism regardless of the schedule and are more concerned with reciting left-wing talking points from Washington than hearing from hard-working Kansans.”

Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa, said GOP members of the redistricting committees made the schedule public at 6 p.m. Friday without consulting or informing Democrats in advance.

“Kansas voters deserve a fair, transparent redistricting process with ample opportunity for citizen participation,” said Sen. Sykes, ranking Democrat on the Senate’s redistricting panel. “Republicans are treating redistricting the same way they treat the legislative process: hastily, sloppily and with as little opportunity for deliberation and public input as possible. That’s a feature, to them, not a bug.”

She said Kansans deserved more respect from Republican leadership than a “perfunctory notice about this critical process.”

Ten of the 14 listening tour sessions on the August schedule are during the 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. time frame when many people would be at work. Only meetings in Hays, Dodge City, Chanute and Kansas City were set in the evening hours. Each session was designed to last no more than one hour and 15 minutes.

LWV not impressed

Martha Pint, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Kansas, said the state’s redistricting committees could be faulted for issuing the tour schedule on short notice and by boxing the process into a single week.

The listening tour shouldn’t be conducted prior to the Census Bureau’s release Aug. 16 of detailed population counts necessary to draw new districts, she said.

In 2011, the Legislature conducted only two redistricting hearings before the complete set of population figures was in hand.

“The League is committed to ensuring that district maps at all levels are drawn fairly and accurately, with the concerns of all Kansans considered and equitably represented,” Pint said. “Rushing through this preliminary process just days before receiving Census data and without adopting unbiased redistricting guidelines guarantees that the public’s testimony can be easily ignored by the committees.”

She said redistricting committees in Kansas traditionally adopted “Guidelines and Criteria” for legislative and congressional districts. While non-binding, the guidelines and criteria gave legislators and other Kansans a method of evaluating and comparing the merits of competing proposals for maps of Kansas House, Kansas Senate, U.S. House and state Board of Education districts.

“Without guidelines,” Pint said, “Kansans’ testimony and information provided to the committees during the hearings will lack essential framework.”

Michael Poppa, executive director of the Mainstream Coalition, said the abrupt hearing process would raise the prospect that what ought to be a nonpartisan process would be distorted into a “partisan tool used by the majority party of the Kansas Legislature to maintain and increase power.”

The Republican Party in Kansas is hatching a “devious scheme” to gerrymander Kansas congressional districts, said Vicki Hiatt, chairwoman of the Kansas Democratic Party.

GOP lawmakers in 2020 and 2021 expressed interest in shifting the four congressional district boundaries in Kansas to drain support for U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Democrat serving the 3rd District in Wyandotte and Johnson counties. She won re-election in 2020 by nearly 40,000 votes, which prompted discussion of moving Democrat-heavy areas into the 2nd District held by Republican U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, who ousted GOP incumbent Steve Watkins to win election in 2020.

“Kansans deserve to elect the leaders who best represent their interest, not the other way around,” Hiatt said. “Major changes in the current makeup of the Kansas congressional districts will disproportionately impact minority communities that are already struggling for representation.”

During an interview on MSNBC in June, Rep. Davids said the Kansas GOP’s goal of redrawing the 3rd District was insulting to voters because the Republican Party was essentially admitting, “If you can’t beat them, cheat them.”

Kansas Reflector stories, kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2021/08/01/conflict-emerges-prior-to-launch-of-august-public-hearings-on-redistricting-in-kansas/.