Gov. Laura Kelly on Monday asked Kansas residents to work together to keep each other safe.
Kansas reported 49,899 total cumulative COVID-19 cases, an increase of 1,513 since Friday morning, according to Gov. Kelly. There were 23 additional deaths since Friday morning, for a cumulative total of 534 deaths.
“We cannot become numb to these numbers,” Gov. Kelly said.
She mentioned Kansans who have died from COVID-19, including a retired Derby, Kansas, police officer, an Olathe, Kansas, baseball coach, and a Wichita, Kansas, man who had returned home from taking care of his father.
“With cases continuing to rise, it is clear that the threat of COVID is far from over,” Gov. Kelly said in a news conference at 4 p.m. Monday.
While everyone is anxious to get back to normal, she urged people to put politics aside and do everything they can to protect their communities. She asked them to continue to wear masks, socially distance, wash hands and avoid large crowds.
Gov. Kelly also said the state’s SPARK recovery task force would be making a recommendation Wednesday on spending CARES Act money on expanded COVID-19 testing.
MARC’s KC Region COVID-19 Hub
At another news conference Monday morning at the University of Kansas Health System, Dr. Kenny Southwick, who has a doctorate in education, executive director of Cooperating School Districts of Greater Kansas City, talked about how they were using the Kansas City Region COVID-19 Hub, created by the Mid-America Regional Council, for gating criteria for schools. The MARC resource serves a nine-county region.
The MARC COVID-19 Hub will show viewers what is going on in their community, and in the surrounding cities and counties, according to Dr. Southwick, as well as a regional comparison.
The data will help schools and school districts make the decisions on reopening, he added. Schools in Missouri went back into session last week, with hybrid and remote options. The KC Region COVID-19 Hub dashboard is at https://marc2.org/covidhub/.
Masks and children
Asked whether elementary students or older students were doing a better job at keeping their masks on at school, Dr. Southwick said the elementary students were doing an “awesome” job of wearing masks, but the secondary students were having some problems keeping them on.
The older the students get, the harder it is to get them to keep their masks on, according to Dr. Southwick.
Also, sometimes the modeling in communities is not very good, he added. He cited an example of being in a large hardware store the other day where a lot of people were wearing masks on their chins, not over their noses and mouths.
Talking about some photos they had seen of young people gathering together without social distancing and masks, Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection control and prevention, said it was difficult to tell young people not to congregate and gather. Proximity is one of the risk factors of COVID-19, he said.
Vaccine trials back
Dr. Steven Stites, chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System, said the vaccine trial is back on in the United Kingdom following a pause last week.
The trial is in phase 2-3 currently. There was a pause in the trials last week, according to a news release from the pharmaceutical company, to review safety data about a patient’s reaction in the United Kingdom. The trial here was not yet resumed in the United States.
Dr. Stites was hopeful that there will be a vaccine in the coming months.
Dr. Hawkinson said there were 10 to 15 vaccine trials currently going on around the country, and they are vetted in a safe manner.
The University of Kansas Health System reported 22 acute COVID-19 patients in the hospital on Monday morning, with 18 to 19 over the weekend, according to Dr. Hawkinson. Four were in the intensive care unit and one was on the ventilator, he said. There also were 35 COVID-19 patients at the hospital who are classified as recovering.
Dr. Stites said they will not know the full effects of COVID-19 and Labor Day weekend, school and college opening until mid to late October.
Wyandotte County reported 17 additional COVID-19 cases from Sunday to Monday,and two additional deaths, according to the UG COVID-19 website. There were a total of 6,347 cumulative cases and 126 deaths in Wyandotte County.
The KDHE reported that Wyandotte County cases increased by 86 from Friday morning to Monday morning.
Johnson County had 9,687 total positive COVID-19 cases on Monday morning, an increase of 337 cases since Friday morning, according to KDHE.
Leavenworth County reported a total of 1,870 COVID-19 cases on Monday morning, an increase of 51 cases since Friday morning, KDHE reported.
The Kansas City Region, a group of nine counties, reported 37,542 total COVID-19 cases, an increase of 526 cases since Sunday, according to the KC Region COVID-19 Resource Hub. There was an increase of seven deaths since Sunday.
The KC Region COVID-19 Resource Hub reported 37,016 cumulative COVID-19 cases in the nine-county area and 519 total deaths on Sunday. There was an average of 120 new cases per day in the KC Region, and a total of 840 new weekly cases, according to the website.
Testing offered Tuesday
Free pop-up testing for COVID-19 is scheduled to take place from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15, at the All Saints Parish, 811 Vermont Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.
The test is through the Health Equity Task Force and Vibrant Health.
Free COVID-19 testing is scheduled to take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 15, at the Health Department parking lot, 6th and Ann, Kansas City, Kansas, weather permitting.
Check with the UG’s website, Health Department Facebook page or call 311 to see if there are any changes in the schedule. Information about testing is at https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/pages/what-to-do-if-you-think-you-have-covid-19.
Gov. Kelly’s news conference is at https://www.facebook.com/GovLauraKelly/videos/2745278769132017.
The KU doctors’ news conference is at https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/432330384394550.
The UG COVID-19 webpage is at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information.
The KDHE active cluster list is at https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/160/COVID-19-in-Kansas.
The Unified Government COVID-19 hub outbreak map at https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/.
To see an NEA list of schools that have had COVID-19 cases, visit https://app.smartsheet.com/b/publish?EQBCT=aa3f2ede7cb2415db943fdaf45866d2f.
The KC Region COVID-19 Hub dashboard is at https://marc2.org/covidhub/.
The Unified Government Health Department is collecting input on people’s experiences getting tested for COVID-19 in Wyandotte County. The survey is on the UG website at https://us.openforms.com/Form/ea97a450-3d74-4d86-8d1f-6e340d55cf7c.
The UG Health Department new school and sports guidance is online at https://alpha.wycokck.org/files/assets/public/health/documents/covid/09042020fallsportsrecommendations.pdf.
A previous UG sports order is online at https://alpha.wycokck.org/files/assets/public/health/documents/covid/08132020localhealthofficerorderregardingsports.pdf.
The Wyandotte County school start order is online at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information.
Wyandotte County is under a mandatory mask order and is in Phase 3 of the state’s reopening plan. For more information, residents may visit the UG COVID-19 website at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information or call 311 for more information.
The KDHE’s COVID-19 webpage is at https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/.
The CDC’s COVID-19 webpage is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html.