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.