Today Dr. Lee Norman, Kansas secretary of health, urged county health officers to monitor their hospital bed capacity diligently.
Health orders are now effective at the county level since the state level plan has become guidance, not mandatory, for the entire state. Wyandotte County health officials adopted the state plan and issued a health order last week making the state plan mandatory in Wyandotte County currently.
Dr. Norman said the Kansas Department of Health and Environment would be working closely with county health officials on monitoring hospital bed capacity.
He said he was extremely disappointed and frustrated by photos and videos showing individuals not practicing health recommendations at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri over the Memorial Day weekend. He had urged caution before the holiday. He has asked those Kansans who participated in the Ozarks event without social distancing to self-quarantine.
Those involved have now gone to other counties and probably other states, including Kansas, according to Dr. Norman.
He asked people to use extreme caution and to remain vigilant.
“This virus has not gone away,” he said. While there are efforts to develop a vaccine, “there is no vaccine available.”
What they have done in the past few months has pushed down the infectivity of the virus, but it has not gone away, and will not go away if they continue to show laxity toward it, he said.
“If we see the conduct like we saw at the Lake of the Ozarks, we’re going to see an increase and perhaps a startling increase in the number of cases,” Dr. Norman said.
He urged businesses and organizations to continue to look at the Ad Astra plan for reopening guidance.
“In the next several weeks, we are entering uncharted, experimental waters,” Dr. Norman said. “It will show us how the reopening efforts have impacted disease spread. I predict that some counties in Kansas will fare well, and some will fare very poorly. I don’t like experimenting with people, and I consider this next period of time to be an experiment in disease spread, and how it takes further root in our citizenry.
“Remember, you are your own preparedness. Wear a mask, wash hands often and practice social distancing,” he said.
He, the governor and the Kansas emergency management director are now looking at the possibility of a second wave, he said. They’ve come through a first wave and are showing a progressive increase, he said. The numbers in all three reopening metrics are improving, and if people are diligent, the numbers will continue to improve, he said. Historically, many pandemics have had a second wave.
“We should not assume that we have to have a second wave,” Dr. Norman said. “What we should do is, yes, prepare for a seond wave, and a wave can come in ripples, it can come in a big peak, it can come in multiple peaks.”
They don’t have the ability to predict how a second wave will appear, but they do feel there will be a second wave of COVID-19, Dr. Norman said, especially with laxity in how people attend to the public health restrictions that should continue to be practiced.
One thing they can do is to take a little different look and ask what they can do to make a second wave not occur in the state, he said. That’s what he considers to be his agency’s call to arms, he said.
Dr. Norman reported 9,337 positive COVID-19 cases in 88 counties, with 205 deaths, on Wednesday. This is a cumulative total.
That compared to 9,218 cases, an increase of 119, from 88 counties, with 188 deaths on Monday, May 25, according to KDHE records. Dr. Norman said the 17 increased deaths were due to the way the deaths have been reported, with some of them coming in in bunches.
Dr. Norman said the state continues to monitor 113 clusters. A cluster at Lansing Correctional Facility is starting to see good results from cohorting inmates who are infected away from those who are not, he said. They are retesting inmates who are negative, and that rate is declining, which is an encouraging sign, he said.
Another cluster was from a gathering at Lake Perry in the first week of May, and they are seeing increased case numbers from it, he added.
The state reported the total number of cases in Wyandotte County at 1,315. Counties near Wyandotte County included Leavenworth, which had 1,073 cases, and Johnson, which had 788, according to KDHE.
Ford County reported 1,628 cases; Finney County, 1,417; Seward County, 838; Sedgwick County, 543; Lyon County, 386; Shawnee County, 272; Jackson County, Kansas, 91; Douglas County, 63; and Riley County, 62, according to KDHE.
Dr. Norman’s news conference is online at https://www.facebook.com/GovLauraKelly/videos/675391013312264/.
The UG’s COVID-19 information page is at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information.
Wyandotte County is under the state’s Phase 2 plan at covid.ks.gov.
The state plan’s frequently asked questions page is at https://covid.ks.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Reopening-FAQ_5.19.2020_Final.pdf.
Additional guidelines from the governor’s office about Phase 2 are at https://www.wycokck.org/WycoKCK/media/Health-Department/Documents/Communicable%20Disease/COVID19/AdAstraUpdate519.pdf.
Test sites are listed at https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/pages/what-to-do-if-you-think-you-have-covid-19.
The CDC’s COVID-19 web page is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html.