Category: Health

Wyandotte County reported four more COVID-19 deaths on Thursday morning, according to figures from the Unified Government COVID-19 webpage.

Deaths now total 16 for COVID-19 related cases in Wyandotte County, according to the UG COVID-19 website.

There were 263 positive cases in Wyandotte County as of 10:30 a.m. Thursday, according to the report. There were 228 cases at 11 a.m. Wednesday morning in Wyandotte County, according to the UG website.

According to the UG Health Department, one of the new deaths on Thursday was related to the Riverbend Post-Acute Center. The numbers of positive cases from the center now are 61, up from 48 on Wednesday, according to UG figures.

The state of Kansas reported 1,046 cases on Wednesday, with 38 deaths statewide, and 11 deaths in one day, its highest number of deaths so far. On Thursday, the 11 a.m. state report showed 1,106 positive cases, 42 statewide deaths and 263 hospitalizations in Kansas.

Johnson County reported 247 positive COVID-19 cases on Thursday morning, with 12 deaths, according to the Johnson County Health Department website. There were three more cases than Wednesday’s total on the KDHE website.

Doctors urge people to stay home this week

Doctors at the University of Kansas Health System today urged people to stay home, although there are some religious holidays including Passover and Easter coming up this week.

“All of those are causes for folks to come together,” Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer for KU Health System, said.

The rate of infection here is probably 5 to 10 percent having coronavirus, more or less, he added. That means, in a gathering of 50 people, five may have the coronavirus, he said. They may not have symptoms, and that is how the disease spreads, he said.

“Use good judgment. We can’t substitute medical judgment for your own personal judgment, and things that are important to individuals and people,” he said. “What we can say is we know how to bend a curve.

“Shelter at home, stay more than six feet apart, if you’re going to go out in public, wear a mask, cough into your elbow, don’t touch your face,” he said.

The number of COVID-19 patients at the University of Kansas Health System Thursday morning was 33, with nine patients in the intensive care unit, Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection control, said.

The doctors said during a news conference Thursday that they are concerned about the increase in numbers in Wyandotte County.

Dr. David Lisbon, an emergency department physician, said data is always important, and may give a sense of how the disease is moving among different communities. It sometimes highlights what they know about health disparities.

“COVID is actually unmasking a lot of the health disparities and health inequities that exist,” Dr. Lisbon said.

A study of about 14 states showed that African-Americans and persons of color seemed to be disproportionately bearing the brunt of the disease, he said.

Without good testing data of the general population, Dr. Stites said the way they measure the disease in order to plan for the future is to use the number of people hospitalized and those on ventilators.

“Our data lags 10 to 14 days behind where the community is,” he said. It takes about 10 to 14 days to become sick and then hospitalized, he added. “That’s the importance of knowing where hospital data is.”

The hospital has been at the same number for four to six days and has fewer on ventilators now. That could mean the curve is flattening, or it could mean they are on a slow rise of the curve, he said. They are cautiously optimistic that they have begun to flatten the curve, but it’s too early to make that statement, he added.

“If we have done that, it’s because people took the shelter at home, the six feet away and all those other things, very seriously,” he said. The Core 4 group of local governments did a good job in closing public places including restaurants, bars and schools, he added.

“Purely from a health care perspective, I think we’re going to figure out that made a real difference,” he said.

Some local statistics on race of COVID-19 patients are not being released by governments.

Dr. Lisbon said the situation of possible health inequities reminds him of the saying, “We’re all in the same storm, but not in the same boat.”

There is evidence from Chicago and Louisiana, where African-Americans make up 17 percent of the population, that they’re bearing about 70 percent of the fatalities, he said, which is disproportionate.

There are factors such as income, education, and long-standing health care inequities, but they won’t know more about them unless they collect that data, Dr. Lisbon said.

Dr. Hawkinson said more data in many areas will be helpful. “We need to know how many infections overall are out there, what demographics are affected the most,” he said. He hopes to find the infection rate is lower in the United States than other countries.

Dr. Stites said a recent study in 14 states found of 1,400 patients who were hospitalized, 33 percent were African-American, which was disproportionately high. To do a strategy to prevent the spread of the disease, how much sense does it make to ignore hotspots, he asked. From a health perspective, that information is valuable, he said.

Dr. Lisbon also discussed factors such as being unemployed, covered by insurance, or if the patient had to go to work where he was further exposed, and those factors need to be considered. Social distancing is harder in certain heavily populated areas such as New York, he said.

“Not everyone can actually do all of our best recommendations, so that’s an issue, at times,” he said.

Recently, Johnson County announced it would do some random testing of its population.

In Wyandotte County, a Health Department drive-up clinic recently opened for patients who have COVID-19 symptoms, and it is necessary to contact them in advance to see if patients qualify for the test.

Dr. Stites said testing throughout the state is ramping up, with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment having more testing ability now. It will make a big difference, he said. It will help determine when it is safe to return to normal operations.

“We’re going to live in a post-COVID world,” he said, past the surge, and people will have to accept a little risk as the coronavirus will still be out there. Testing will help identify where the disease is, allowing the Health Department to get contacts and take actions to intervene.

On another topic, Dr. Lisbon said there has been a drop in overall numbers for patients coming into the emergency room since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. While telemedicine is being used more for office visits, any individual who feels an emergency may still come to the emergency room, Dr. Lisbon said.

Victims of domestic violence or sexual assault will still be treated with compassion and dignity, the same way as pre-COVID-19, Dr. Lisbon said.

“There is evidence, even internationally, that individuals in those situations are now in somewhat of a constricted movement situation,” he said. Some feel they cannot get relief from a battering situation.

According to the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department, temporary protection orders will remain in effect here in spite of recent court closures, and upcoming cases were being rescheduled later. Those who need protection orders may call 913-573-5153, option 5. The Wyandotte County District Attorney’s office recently announced that temporary protection orders would stay in place at least until May 27. Some local shelters are still open.

To view the KU Health System news conference, visit https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/2635178646591132/

The Wyandotte County COVID-19 website is at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information.

The state’s COVID-19 website is at https://govstatus.egov.com/coronavirus.

The CDC COVID-19 website is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html.

Kansas COVID-19 cases top 1,000; 11 more deaths

The Kansas Legislative Coordinating Council on Wednesday overturned Gov. Laura Kelly’s order limiting churches to no more than 10 persons, and Gov. Kelly responded that her legal team is looking into ways to counter the action.

Kansas positive COVID-19 cases topped 1,000 on Wednesday, according to figures from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, with 38 deaths statewide.

It was the deadliest day for COVID-19 so far in Kansas, with 11 more deaths statewide in one day.

The number of positive cases, 1,046, rose more than 100 from Tuesday morning’s 900 cases.

In Wyandotte County, there were 229 positive COVID-19 cases and 13 deaths at 4:40 p.m. Wednesday, according to the UG COVID-19 webpage. There were three more COVID-19 deaths since Tuesday in the county.

The LCC is a small group of Kansas legislative leaders that meets when the Legislature is not meeting. The vote was 5-2, with Republican leaders voting to overturn the order.

Gov. Kelly said in a news conference that projections showed it could be a few more weeks before Kansas hits its peak in COVID-19 cases. The jump in the death rate today only underscored the very grave danger that the state faces.

She called a memo sent out by the Kansas attorney general earlier today a “bizzare, confusing attack” at a time of emergency.

Gov. Kelly said he endorsed the steps the administration took to keep Kansas safe, encouraged Kansans to observe the restrictions on mass gathering, but he discouraged local law enforcement officers from enforcing the executive order.

“And Republican leaders followed suit with an irresponsible decision that will put every Kansan’s life at risk,” she said.

Gov. Kelly said the attorney general’s memo has no authority, but it did have the ability to undermine and inject chaos, and distract efforts away from mitigating the threat of COVID-19.

She said the effort to fight COVID-19 formerly had been bipartisan in Kansas, and that she was nonpolitical and trying to serve th estate.

“There are real-life consequences to the partisan games leaders played today,” Gov. Kelly said.

“Kansans are dying every day at the hand of this pandemic, and there is no room or excuse for these petty political distractions,” she said. “Coronavirus knows no boundaries, no faith, no political party, it is a deadly threat to us all, no matter where we live or our political affiliation.”

Dr. Lee Norman, Kansas secretary of health, said in the news conference today that they are approaching the peak in the growth of deaths in Kansas. He said he is very concerned about people gathering in groups of any kind.

Twelve group gatherings so far in six counties have resulted in 165 positive cases and in 12 deaths in Kansas, Dr. Norman said. Three of the 12 clusters were related to church gatherings.

“There were two deaths in Montgomery County last week,” he said. “The wife attended a church conference in Wyandotte County.”

A large number of cases came from that church conference, he said.

She went home, her husband became infected, and both of them died, Dr. Norman said. The KDHE was not able to trace all of their contacts because they were both dead, he added.

While the health care system is not overburdened yet, if people return to meeting together, the health care system could become overburdened, resulting in more deaths.

“We cannot let our guard down, we are about to enter the peak of this pandemic,” Dr. Norman said.

Besides the church clusters, the state is fighting an outbreak at Lansing Correctional Facility in Leavenworth County, where 11 staff members and 10 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19, he said.

Wyandotte County also has a large cluster of cases at the Riverbend Post-Acute Rehabilitation Center, where there were six deaths and 56 positive cases, according to the Unified Government Health Department.

Gov. Kelly said her legal staff is trying to find out if the action taken by the LCC today overturned not just Tuesday’s order, but also a previous order putting limits on mass gatherings.

Gov. Kelly said she has been in communication with faith leaders in Kansas before making the order Tuesday, and they were in support of it. Many churches already have stopped having in-person meetings and are conducting services on the internet or other electronic means.

She also said she knew of very few cases where local law enforcement had to go in and break up a large group in Kansas.

Dr. Norman said there are two factors influencing when people can get back to work and their normal lives. One is how soon a state closed schools, and Kansas closed schools early, he said. The second is how much people socially distance and limit their travels, he said. That is the second biggest factor influencing death rates and the number of people in intensive care units, he said.

He said the action by the LCC today flies in the face of everything that has been done so far and he hopes it doesn’t have a negative impact on commerce, as well.

Challenge to governor’s order limiting religious services to 10 and under

The Kansas Legislative Coordinating Council voted 5-2 on Wednesday to overturn the governor’s order limiting churches to 10 and under.

A letter was sent to the governor on Wednesday challenging the limit on religious services to 10 and under.

The Kansas Justice Institute, in a letter to Gov. Kelly today, pointed out that shopping malls and libraries were not specifically defined as essential under the order, yet were exempted from the 10-person limit. Churches were considered as essential but a specific limit was placed on them, according to the letter. A less restrictive option should be considered for churches, such as requiring masks and gloves, the letter stated.

In Wyandotte County, however, the picture portrayed in the letter is not accurate – the libraries here already are closed, and the biggest shopping mall, The Legends, also is closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But some stores elsewhere were left open for people to obtain groceries and supplies.

AG to law enforcement: Thou shalt not arrest worshippers

Walking a thin line between two points of view, Kansas Attorney Gen. Derek Schmidt today stated that Kansans should comply with the governor’s order limiting religious gatherings during the pandemic, but they cannot be arrested, prosecuted or imprisoned for worshipping.

While it was sound public health advice, the order likely violates state constitutional and statutory protections for religious freedom and must not be enforced by arrest, prosecution, fines or imprisonment, the attorney general stated.

“The Office of Attorney General strongly encourages all Kansans participating in religious services or activities to voluntarily comply with the new restrictions on religious mass gatherings in order to protect public health,” Schmidt wrote in a memorandum to law enforcement agencies and prosecutors statewide. “Nevertheless, … we also strongly discourage law enforcement from attempting to enforce the requirements of EO 20-18 as violations of the criminal law. In our view, Kansas statute and the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights each forbid the governor from criminalizing participation in worship gatherings by executive order.”

Today’s memorandum is the second Schmidt has provided to assist law enforcement and prosecutors statewide in navigating the legally uncertain world of enforcing emergency orders during the current COVID-19 crisis. He said today’s further guidance was necessary because the new executive order singles out for additional regulation the exercise of a fundamental freedom expressly protected by the Kansas Constitution and by state statute. Schmidt noted that Section 7 of the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights, as well as the state’s Preservation for Religious Freedom Act, both set strict limits on the authority of any state or local government authority, including the governor, to restrict the religious freedoms of Kansans.

“Kansas statutory and constitutional law, which remain in effect, provide substantially more protection for Kansans’ fundamental religious freedoms than does federal law,” Schmidt wrote. “Because no Kansan should be threatened with fine or imprisonment, arrested, or prosecuted for performing or attending church or other religious services… , law enforcement officers are advised to encourage cooperative compliance with the new provisions of EO 20-18 and to avoid engaging in criminal enforcement of its limitations on religious facilities, services or activities.”

During an emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, temporary restrictions on even fundamental rights may be lawful, but only if the government proves they are the least restrictive means necessary to meet the emergency, Schmidt stated. In this case, executive orders prohibiting indoor gatherings of more than 10 people in churches, synagogues, temples and mosques but still allowing larger groups to gather in shopping malls, retail stores, libraries and numerous other places as long as they practice social distancing cast serious doubt on whether the burden on religion is the least restrictive means necessary, according to Schmidt.

The attorney general’s memo is not binding on law enforcement and prosecutors; while it carries a heavier weight than the average person’s opinion, it is not as strong as a court’s opinion.

Some religious leaders backing the order limiting mass gatherings

Gov. Kelly, in a recent news release, quoted from several Kansas religious leaders who are in support of the order:

The Rev. C.L. Bachus of Kansas City, Kansas, Mt. Zion Baptist Church: “I am calling the Christian community to follow Governor Kelly’s executive order as it relates to social distancing and limited gatherings. We’ve had some difficult experiences in the religious community that makes this action necessary. I encourage you all to obey the mandate. It’s time we use good common sense as well as exercise our faith during this difficult time. We are all in this together.”

Catholic Monsigner Stuart Swetland of Donnelly College in Kansas City, Kansas: “Everyone recognizes the religious liberty and first amendment rights, but with rights also comes the duty to serve the common good. Right now, it is necessary for religious institutions to serve the common good and our common health by following this reasonable request from the Governor.”

Dr. T. La Mont Holder, president of Missionary Baptist State Convention of Kansas: “In light of the COVID-19 Pandemic, it is imperative that pastors and churches comply fully with the state and local gathering restrictions of (10 or less) that have been implemented by our Governor, Laura Kelly, and the healthcare experts who are working with her daily to provide the best policies and practices for reducing the spread here in Kansas.

“This is no time for spiritual extremism. It is the responsibility of each pastor and church to act responsibly and lead by example. To continue to place the health and welfare of our church members, and the community at large in danger is biblically and morally irresponsible and reckless.

“In these difficult times we must endeavor to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem. To defy the meeting restrictions is negligent, selfish and reprehensible. As a member of the clergy, I understand that as a community of faith the church is our safe place. However we must not turn our safe places into sanctuaries of predation.

“I implore every pastor, church leader and parishioner across the state of Kansas to rethink your actions during this vulnerable time in our nation and particularly in Kansas. We are in a state of emergency and our actions in these critical moments will determine how soon we get beyond this healthcare emergency.”

The Rev. Shirley D. Heermance, pastor at Historic St. Mark’s A.M.E Church, Topeka: “Today we were informed of the Honorable Governor Laura Kelly’s Executive Order to remove the exemption that allowed for members of the Faith Community to gather for worship, per the established distancing order. The Historic St. Mark’s African Methodist Episcopal Church (Topeka, Kansas) stand in support of this difficult decision. Sharing with others of the Faith Community, who believe that through this crisis, we are safer at home. We are grateful to have opportunity to continue in Worship, study, and official meetings through the social media and teleconferencing. Our hearts are filled with sorrow over the 11,000-plus lives lost to the COVID-19 virus. We are thankful for all those who serve through this crisis on the front line and will remain prayerful until at last our God has healed our State, our Nation, and our World.”

To view the governor’s news conference, visit https://www.facebook.com/GovLauraKelly/videos/1037628039966755/

To listen to the Legislative Coordinating Council discussion, visit http://sg001-harmony.sliq.net/00287/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20200408/-1/9503.

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

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

The CDC COVID-19 page is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html.