Category: Health

Kansas has 552 COVID-19 cases

Wyandotte County reported 108 positive COVID-19 cases at 4:50 p.m. April 2, with one additional death, according to the Unified Government website.

It brought the total number of deaths in Wyandotte County to five, the UG’s COVID-19 website stated. According to the UG, the fifth death was a woman in her 60s who died on April 1.

Kansas reported 552 positive cases with a total 13 deaths statewide about 11 a.m. April 2, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment website.

The KDHE reported three additional deaths in Kansas since the April 1 count. Kansas now has 44 counties with at least one positive case.

Johnson County reported 161 cases, according to the KDHE. Johnson County reported one additional death since April 1, and now has a total four deaths, according to the Johnson County Health Department website. The county reported 144 cases on April 1.

According to the KDHE website, there were 138 hospitalizations statewide, with 6,059 negative tests reported. There were 685 lab tests in Wyandotte County, the website stated.

There were 40 COVID-19 hospitalizations in Wyandotte County, the UG’s website stated.

Today, Gov. Laura Kelly, at a news conference, continued to urge residents to stay home and stay safe to stop the spread of COVID-19. A statewide stay-home order is in effect through April 19. Wyandotte County has a stay-home order that is effective from when the state’s order expires, through April 24.

Gov. Kelly also said today the Kansas Department of Revenue is waiving penalty and interest on first quarter 2020 estimated tax payments made after April 15, but on or before July 15, 2020. It applies to individual income tax, corporate income tax and privilege tax.

Unemployment filings now over 79,000 in Kansas

Gov. Kelly said the pandemic has caused a great loss of jobs in Kansas, and a surge of unemployment claims that has overwhelmed the state Department of Labor’s online system for applying for and receiving benefits.

Kansas Labor Secretary Delia Garcia said there were roughly 10 million persons filing for unemployment benefits at the national level, as of today’s figures, and Kansas has 79,353 unemployment claims currently. She said the nation has not seen this sort of unemployment recently; it’s worse than the 2008 recession.

Gov. Kelly said the state Department of Labor was overwhelmed with 877,000 phone calls on Monday, and the state now has brought in help to provide more capacity. Amazon web services is now contracting with the state to provide more service.

Also, the state has transferred some employees from other departments to help with the calls, she said. Retired workers also have been asked to come back.

The governor asked those who could use the internet to file electronically on www.gotkansasbenefits.gov. The phone lines are reserved for those who don’t have the internet, for non-English speakers, military service members and those who recently moved to the state.

Also, the governor urged residents not to hang up on the phone line and call back again, as that will put them at the back of the line.

Garcia urged self-employed people to apply, as well as other workers who are unemployed. The federal legislation will include funds for self-employed people, but they have to go through a process of applying, and being denied in order to qualify for it.

Garcia said the state’s jobless trust fund is solvent, with about $1 billion in it, and they thought it would have lasted until February 2021, but they’re not sure at the present how long the funds will last.

The governor said the state buildings are not being reopened, but more state employees will begin working remotely from home on Monday as more state operations resume.

Also, Gov. Kelly said the state has submitted more than six orders to the federal government for hundreds of thousands of pieces of personal protective equipment such as gowns and masks since mid-March. While the orders were received and approved, the state has not received any of the equipment, she said. She said all the states are facing the same problems.

“The federal system really was not prepared for this, they didn’t have the stockpiles on hand to meet the demands when the demands came in,” she said. “And then, quite honestly, whatever system they had, the delivery isn’t working.”

“When this pandemic began in China should have been the time that we were looking very, very closely at what we had on hand at the federal level and prepared a system for distribution to the states, because it was clear from the get-go that this was going to be a global problem,” Gov. Kelly said at the news conference. “We just didn’t take it seriously enough soon enough, and I think we’re all paying the price for that now.”

Questions were raised about civil rights being violated through the tracking of cell phone data to find out if an area’s residents are complying with the stay-home order. Gov. Kelly said this is not the state’s program, the state doesn’t contract with those who are doing the tracking, and they were just seeing the reports online like anyone else. She believed it helped the state get an idea of areas where people are following the stay-home order, and areas where they are not. It doesn’t identify any individuals.

Wyandotte County got a “B-” on that cell tracking scoreboard, showing that activity has been reduced since before the stay-home orders went into effect. According to the website, the county had a 25 to 40 percent decrease in average mobility based on distance traveled, and greater than 70 percent decrease in nonessential visits. (See https://www.unacast.com/covid19/social-distancing-scoreboard)

The governor also explained that the state’s stay-home order, which allows trips to grocery stores and hardware stores, was not supposed to be an opportunity to browse around for a long time in stores. It was meant for people to go and pick up their essentials and then leave.

KU doctors urge people to maintain social distancing

The University of Kansas Hospital had 36 positive COVID-19 patients on Thursday, with 14 patients on ventilators, according to hospital officials. There are 48 inpatients waiting for test results.

“Nothing bugs me more than to go out and drive around one of the parks, see people congregating together, walking together, acting like it’s a normal day,” Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer of the University of Kansas Health System, said. “It is not a normal day. This is a pandemic.”

He urged residents to stay at home, stay safe and socially distance. “It works,” he said.

Some areas are slowing the rate of the rise by social distancing, he said. The evidence is compelling that social distancing and staying at home is slowing the rate of the virus, he said. It could reduce the duration of the crisis and the number of days that the stay-home orders are in effect, he added.

Rural areas, according to the doctors, are staying in touch with the KU Health System and receiving regular updates. Telemedicine may be a silver lining in this crisis, according to Dr. Stites.

To see the governor’s news conference, with more information available, visit https://www.facebook.com/GovLauraKelly.

To see the KU doctors’ news conference, with more information available, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=037YfXEF0Kw&feature=youtu.be.

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

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

COVID-19 information from the CDC is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html.

Wyandotte County’s positive COVID-19 cases topped 100 today, according to an evening update on the Unified Government’s COVID-19 page.

There were 101 positive COVID-19 patients in Wyandotte County, as of 4:25 p.m. April 1, with 34 patients hospitalized, according to the report. There have been four COVID-19 related deaths since mid-March in Wyandotte County.

The number of self-reporting responses also increased to 141, with 52 of them as probable cases, according to the UG’s website.

The total of positive cases in Wyandotte County was 75 on Tuesday morning, according to the UG COVID-19 page report.

Broken down by Zip Codes, there were 25 positive cases in 66109; 24 cases in 66104; 19 cases in 66112; 15 cases in 66102; and 5 cases in 66106. Other Zip Code areas of the county were not reported because they had fewer than 5 cases.

Earlier today, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported that statewide cases had increased to 482 cases, an increase of 54 cases from Tuesday morning.

Doctors: Stay home, social distancing works

At an 8 a.m. April 1 video news conference, University of Kansas Health System doctors emphasized the importance of social distancing.

Doctors warned that people who live in small communities should not think that COVID-19 will not go there.

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at KU Health System, said he thinks the virus eventually will find its way to small towns and rural areas as well as urban areas.

“The virus doesn’t care how much money you make, what your job is, where you live. It gets around to these communities,” he said.

Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at KU Health System, noted that the coronavirus (COVID-19) already jumped an ocean, and went to Seattle and New York. It has been found in Kansas City, Wichita, Lawrence and Topeka.

“It doesn’t care where you live,” he said. “It’s coming across the country, and to think it’s only a big city virus is only hopeful thinking, not true thinking. That hopeful thinking will get you into trouble.”

Dr. Hawkinson said they are now seeing nurses and health care workers in other areas without enough personal protective equipment. Currently at KU Health System, they have enough now.

“The biggest thing we can do is stay home,” he said, “so that our nurses, our respiratory therapists and our physicians don’t have to deal with the surge like in Indianapolis and Louisiana and New York have had to deal with. And if we do that, we will have plenty of protective equipment.”

Rachel Pepper, chief nursing officer for the KU Health System, said, “Our nurses are truly doing great. We have such a strong and resilient team.

“There are a lot of things right now that feel uncertain or are changing, but what I see nursing doing every day is truly what they do very best,” Pepper said. “Our nurses are focused on their patients, they want to be there to support every single patient and give them the most safe care that they can. They’re working as a team, and they’re constantly sharing thoughts and ideas and concerns that they have with all of our colleagues, so that we can become better together to take care of these patients, and truly improve the health of everyone.

“I think our nurses are feeling that outpouring of support from the community everyday, and they’re so incredibly grateful for that. They’re proud to take care of our patients.

“They would also ask the community to really embrace the power in every single person’s hands by staying home, and socially distancing and washing your hands,” she said. “We truly are all in this together.”

There were 36 COVID-19 inpatients at KU Health System on Wednesday morning, up from 25 previously. There were 11 of the COVID-19 patients on ventilators, according to the hospital, and 14 were in the intensive care unit.

“As we look at that rise,” Dr. Stites said, “that’s kind of a sign that we’re on the ascent, I wouldn’t say the rapid ascent yet.”

To see more information from the video news conference, visit https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/663919834401431/?notif_id=1585659832905564&notif_t=live_video_explicit

More information from the news conference is at https://www.facebook.com/GovLauraKelly/videos/890710201360932/.

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

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

Numbers of positive COVID-19 cases continued to climb on Wednesday, with Kansas now at 482 cases and Wyandotte County at 93 cases, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

Kansas reported 482 positive COVID-19 cases on Wednesday morning, April 1, as compared to 428 on Tuesday morning, an increase of 54 cases in one day. The state had one more COVID-19 related death, bringing the total to 10 in Kansas.

Wyandotte County now has 93 positive COVID-19 cases, as compared to 75 on Tuesday morning and 89 on Tuesday evening. Wyandotte County has had four COVID-19 related deaths.

Johnson County reported 144 positive cases, an increase of 10 cases since Tuesday morning, and has three total deaths.

As the numbers continue to rise, Gov. Laura Kelly, in a news conference Wednesday, said that the “stay home” order would continue in place past Easter, which is April 12. The order is scheduled to continue through April 23.

“The idea that everybody is going to be congregating for Easter Mass is not realistic,” Gov. Kelly said. The stay-home order will still be in place. She said she is asking houses of worship to respect the limitation of 10 persons on gatherings, and to practice social distancing, which will make it difficult for them to all gather in one place.

Dr. Lee Norman, Kansas secretary of health, said at the news conference that it is important to limit groups to 10 people or less, observing social distancing.

There were 50 people in attendance at a church conference from March 16 to 22 at the Miracle Temple Church of God in Christ at 2106 Quindaro Blvd., in Kansas City, Kansas, where there was a positive COVID-19 case, he said. They are investigating the contacts, and have linked several cases now back to the church gathering, he added.

The conference took place before the stay-at-home order went into effect in Wyandotte County on March 24.

“It demonstrates how, in cases like this, cases just scatter to the wind, and they go to other counties,” Dr. Norman said. “So, other counties are involved in the investigations of the people who gathered for this church event.”

Health officials have asked anyone who attended the conference to get in touch with their doctor, a clinic or the Unified Government Health Department’s self-reporting website.

The Burlington Life Care Center in Burlington, Kansas, now has 14 positive COVID-19 cases, Dr. Norman said. He said there is now one death in a resident associated with COVID-19 there.

Dr. Norman said at the news conference that the number of cases at the end of March were about where he thought they would be, around 400.

He said the state is about 1 percent of the United States, and he believes Kansas will outperform numbers and not have deaths of 1 percent of the population of the state, as some have predicted. He said he thinks the deaths will be under 1,000.

He said he is currently working on projections for cases and deaths in Kansas. It varies widely by methodology used, he said.

The state prison, Lansing Correctional Facility, has reported three positive tests of staff, Gov. Kelly said. They were the first positive cases in the Kansas Department of Corrections, she said. The staff members were a man over 20 years old, and two women over 40 years old, according to KDOC.

Gov. Kelly said inmates in close contact with the positive cases were moved to medical isolation and were being monitored for symptoms. The process is similar to an individual who has been asked to self-isolate.

Dr. Norman said KDHE will manage oversight of the offenders and staff, and not the local health department, which could be overwhelmed if there are too many cases.

Also, Gov. Kelly announced that there is a new adjutant general of Kansas, Maj. Gen. David Weishaar, who succeeds Maj. Gen. Lee Tafanelli, who is retiring. Weishaar will direct the Kansas Emergency Management Department and coordinate the state’s response to the epidemic. Tafanelli will be staying on temporarily as an adviser.

Dr. Norman said the state is still struggling to get swabs to do testing for COVID-19. These are medical swabs, with no natural materials in them, and they are longer than ordinary swabs.

More testing should go online in Kansas in the next few weeks, he said, and the state needs more swabs to do the testing.

When they have adequate supplies of tests, the state plans to do some population studies, he said. About 78 percent of the positive tests have come from six counties, he said, and population studies are needed to determine how widespread COVID-19 is in the state. That will help health officials determine when it will be possible to go back to a more normal life.

The governor asked residents to “do your best to stay home, stay safe and save lives.”

More information from the news conference is at https://www.facebook.com/GovLauraKelly/videos/890710201360932/.

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

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

COVID-19 information from the CDC is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html.