Author: Mary Rupert

COVID-19 cases increase 163 in Kansas, with four deaths

Kansas reported an increase of 163 COVID-19 cases and four more deaths on Tuesday. (KDHE map)
The Unified Government COVID-19 page reported 585 positive cases and a total of 53 deaths on Tuesday. It was an increase of 10 cases, and there were no increases in deaths. (UG COVID-19 webpage)

Kansas reported 3,491 positive COVID-19 cases on Tuesday and 124 total deaths, according to information from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment website.

It was an increase of 163 cases statewide, and an increase of four deaths. Seventy-six counties reported positive cases.

The Unified Government Health Department reported 585 cases and 53 deaths at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 28, according to the UG’s COVID-19 webpage. It was an increase of 12 cases, with no increase in deaths. The county reported 127 recoveries.

According to a UG Health Department social media post, another death at Riverbend Post-Acute Rehabilitation facility has been recorded. There are now a total of 30 COVID-19 related deaths of residents.

There have been two residents of Life Care Center of Kansas City who have died, according to the Health Department’s social media page. Five residents and four staff tested positive. On March 11, another resident died who had COVID-19.

The UG’s COVID-19 webpage recently was redesigned, and it lists updates on clusters of cases in Wyandotte County.

The clusters listed on April 28 were Riverbend Post-Acute Rehabilitation facility, 7850 Freeman Ave., Kansas City, Kansas, 128 positive cases; Life Care Center of Kansas City, 3231 N. 61st St., Kansas City, Kansas, 9 cases; Delaware Highlands Assisted Living, 12600 Delaware Parkway, Kansas City, Kansas, 18 cases; Miracle Temple Minister’s Conference, 2106 Quindaro Blvd., Kansas City, Kansas, 51 cases; Rising Star Baptist Church, 1034 Walker Ave., Kansas City, Kansas, 7 cases; Kellogg’s Bakery, 801 Sunshine Road, Kansas City, Kansas, 16 cases; Donnelly College construction site, 608 N. 18th St., Kansas City, Kansas, 8 cases; and National Beef Packaging, 100 Osage Ave., Kansas City, Kansas, 20 cases.

With clusters, according to Health Department information, the Health Department provides guidance on the use of personal protective equipment, isolating positive cases, providing guidance on social distancing and workflow, and ensuring other symptomatic individuals in that location are tested.

Positive cases in the United States went up over 1 million today, according to the CDC.

In Kansas, Seward County, the Liberal area, reported an increase of 73 cases Tuesday. Some of the counties’ reports, according to the KDHE: Ford (Dodge City area), 544 cases; Johnson County, 446 cases; Seward (Liberal area), 422 cases; Sedgwick (Wichita area), 351 cases; Leavenworth County, 183 cases; Finney (Garden City area), 175 cases; Lyon County (Emporia area), 171 cases; Shawnee, 106 cases; Douglas (Lawrence area), 49 cases; Coffey (Burlington area), 48 cases; Riley County (Manhattan area), 46 cases; Reno County, 26; Labette County, 21; McPherson County, 20; Saline County, 20; Montgomery County, 16; Butler County, 15; Wabaunsee County, 15; Franklin County, 13; and Geary County, 11.

KU doctors: Flattening the curve

The number of positive COVID-19 patients at the University of Kansas Health System on Tuesday totaled 26, up from 24 on Monday. Eleven patients were in the intensive care unit, down from 12 on Monday. According to KU officials, 75 patients have been treated for COVID-19 and released.

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at KU Health System, said the sheltering in place for the past four to six weeks has been paying off. The hospital has not seen a large surge in cases to date.

Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at the KU Health System, said they have flattened the curve and have had about the same level for two to three weeks.

Dr. Stites also urged patients with chronic illnesses to continue to see their doctor, whether in person or by telehealth visits. There has been some early evidence that there are a number of people having heart attacks and strokes at home, who are afraid to come into the hospital, he said. He added the hospitals are safe and they have separated COVID-19 patients from the other patients.

Dr. Keith Sale, vice president of ambulatory services at KU Health System, said he thought the increased telehealth services will remain in the future. KU Health System as had about 25,000 telehealth visits in the past five weeks, as compared to 500 patients a year previously for telehealth, he said.

Future health care will probably be a balance between in-person visits and telehealth visits, he believes.

According to Dr. Hawkinson, it will be safe to reopen society only if everyone takes personal responsibility by keeping social distancing, washing their hands, not touching their faces and coughing into the elbow. Even if restrictions are lifted, COVID-19 will still be here until there is a vaccine and treatment, according to Dr. Hawkinson.

Dr. Stites said governments may reopen and businesses may reopen, but individuals still will have to take personal responsibility to make sure they do not get COVID-19.

To see the KU doctors’ news conference, visit https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/519558072023502/?tn=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARALIUbLMu7uxA1rh3oCACOBnr2S4-waghP8T5LTDCmKGRA0CxWvmx0zWGoqVr2p73W6cnctF6hRNdYg.

The Kansas COVID-19 website is at https://covid.ks.gov/.


The Kansas COVID-19 resource page is at https://govstatus.egov.com/coronavirus

The UG’s COVID-19 webpage is at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information.


Information from the CDC is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/.

KCK schools’ lunch program closed because of sick employee

The Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools’ nutritional services program, which provides lunches to school children, was closed today after an employee reported to work with a fever, according to a district spokesman.

Edwin Birch, executive director of communication and marketing for the district, said as a precautionary measure, the district closed down the nutritional services program until they figure out if the person is positive or not for COVID-19. The district doesn’t know at this point is the employee is positive or not, he added.

Birch said they want to make sure that by closing the central kitchen, they are not transmitting anything to anyone. The district is not sure at this time how many people the employee came into contact with, he added.

The school district will not distribute meals for the rest of this week, and when the kitchen is open again, the district will announce it, he added.

The KCK school district has a list of some food assistance resources on its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/kckschools/.

There are some other organizations that provide food in Wyandotte County; for more information, visit the Harvesters’ food bank website at https://www.harvesters.org/.

The Unified Government’s COVID-19 webpage has a food needs request form online at https://us.openforms.com/Form/a8857119-e46c-433b-b1e4-2e021fb2250e.

Gov. Kelly moving forward with plans to restart economy

Kansas reported 3,328 positive COVID-19 cases from 75 counties today, an increase of 154 cases. (KDHE map)
Dr. Lee Norman, Kansas health secretary, said he expects cases to start declining. This chart showed new cases in blue and total cases reported by date diagnosed in yellow. (KDHE chart)
This KDHE chart showed the date symptoms started in blue, and the date the patients were diagnosed in yellow. (KDHE chart)

Gov. Laura Kelly said today in a news conference that she is moving forward with plans to restart the economy.

She said the state is looking at metrics that would allow some restrictions to be lifted on May 4, and right now, it appears that it would be safe to do that. While the governor did not yet announce the details of the reopening plans, she is working on plans that are to be announced later this week, she added.

Besides downward trends in hospitalizations and deaths, the state also has made some progress on the acquisition of testing, helping the state ramp up its testing to a more robust level than before, Gov. Kelly said.

When the state lifts the stay-at-home order, the local communities would be free to issue their own orders that apply to their counties.

“When we lift the statewide stay-at-home order, we then reauthorize the local counties to take our guidelines and be more restrictive if they think it’s warranted in their particular environment,” Gov. Kelly said.

That authority will go back to the counties to put in measures that are more restrictive than the ones statewide, she said. The state still has the authority to put in place measures that override what is done in a local county, although the state doesn’t want to have to do that, according to the governor.

Gov. Kelly said there may have been more testing going on than has been reported because private labs were doing 80 percent of the testing and did not always report negative tests to the state, only positive results.

Kansas reported 3,328 positive COVID-19 cases from 75 counties today, an increase of 154 cases, according to Gov. Kelly. The state now has 120 total deaths.

Two more deaths were reported today in Wyandotte County from people who had tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Unified Government Health Department webpage.

In addition, there was a death of an inmate from the Lansing Correctional Facility over 50 years old with underlying health conditions, according to state officials.

Dr. Lee Norman, Kansas secretary of health, said today that they will be using the number of hospitalizations, number of deaths per capita and number of deaths per positive cases in determining whether the state is ready to reopen.

He said those numbers are decreasing and that is encouraging. While there will be an uptick in the number of positive cases, he said things are not getting worse in reality.

While there were 378 positive COVID-19 cases reported at the Kansas meatpacking plants, so far there were no deaths, he said, and possibly one hospitalization. Most of those positive cases are asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic, he said. He said the counts would peak and then drop.

When asked why the state didn’t reopen immediately, Dr. Norman said there were still a lot of COVID-19 cases out there, and it would be imprudent to reopen now, taking a big leap before taking a more measured approach. “You have to walk before you can run,” he said.

At the current run rate, they have the ability to test everyone who’s symptomatic now, he added.

Gov. Kelly said it was important to have in-depth discussions with all stakeholders, allowing them to have input, before lifting the order.

Gov. Kelly said today she had a call with the White House and Kansas will receive equipment that will sterilize N95 masks and make them safe to use for workers who originally used them. They will extend the life of the masks up to 20 times, she said. Up to 80,000 masks a day can be sanitized by this system, she said. The system will go into operation next week, she added.

The governor also said she has been gathering input from different businesses, legislators, health care representatives and local communities on reopening the state. She will announce a plan on Thursday.

State officials also announced a new Kansas COVID-19 website at https://covid.ks.gov/. The website includes not just medical and case information, but also information about job assistance, unemployment benefits, as well as social services that are available.

Dr. Norman said the state is monitoring 55 clusters, including 18 in long-term care facilities with 401 cases and 68 deaths.

Also, there are clusters in two group living arrangements with 28 cases and zero deaths; Lansing Correctional Facility, 115 cases and one death; two health care facilities, 16 cases, zero deaths; six religious gatherings, 99 cases and eight deaths; 21 private companies, 170 cases and four deaths; and six meatpacking facilities, 378 cases and zero deaths.

Testing and contact tracing will be the key to reopening, he said.

There are 20 existing KDHE staff who are being trained to do contact tracing in Lyon, Ford, Finney and Seward counties, he said. Then they will bring in about 400 volunteers to do case tracking, in groups of 50, he said.

Dr. Norman said a toxicologist and emergency medicine physician at the Kansas Poison Control Center has seen a more than 40 percent increase in cleaning chemical cases, including a person who drank a cleaning product because of the advice he received. Dr. Norman said they are trying to present counter-messages to ingesting cleaning chemicals.

Gov. Kelly said another round of $320 billion federal funding for small business loans was approved today, and she encouraged Kansas businesses to put in their applications as soon as possible, if they have not already done so.

Dr. Norman said it is likely that even when it reopens, society probably will change the way they interact in business and groups of people. Social distancing probably will remain for a long time.

Some of the counties’ reports, according to the KDHE: Ford (Dodge City area), 516 cases; Johnson County, 440 cases; Seward (Liberal area), 349 cases; Sedgwick (Wichita area), 339 cases; Leavenworth County, 184 cases; Finney (Garden City area), 175 cases; Lyon County (Emporia area), 147 cases; Shawnee, 105 cases; Coffey (Burlington area), 48 cases; Douglas (Lawrence area), 48 cases; Riley County (Manhattan area), 45 cases; Reno County, 26; Labette County, 21; McPherson County, 20; Saline County, 19; Montgomery County, 16; Butler County, 14; Wabaunsee County, 15; Franklin County, 12; and Geary County, 11.

Gov. Kelly’s news conference is on video at https://www.facebook.com/GovLauraKelly/videos/912623055864233/.

The Kansas COVID-19 website is at https://covid.ks.gov/.

The Kansas COVID-19 resource page is at https://govstatus.egov.com/coronavirus

The UG’s COVID-19 webpage is at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information.

Information from the CDC is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/.