Tag: Kansas

How Kansas prisons dodged a Delta COVID surge after getting hit hard early in the pandemic

Kansas prisons were hotbeds of coronavirus infections early in the pandemic, but vaccinations appear to have protected those inmates living in close quarters.

by Blaise Mesa, Kansas News Service and KCUR

Topeka, Kansas — Two out of every three Kansas inmates have had COVID-19 and Kansas saw the fifth-highest infection rate of prisoners in the country through the course of the pandemic.

But when the Delta variant began driving up cases across the state, Kansas prisons largely avoided another surge because more than three-fourths of inmates had been vaccinated — a far higher rate than the general population.

The decrease in reported cases coincides with vaccine availability for inmates. At roughly 78%, Kansas has the 11th most vaccinated inmate population in the country, according to a prisoner advocacy group. Barely 50% of all Kansans have received at least one vaccine dose.

The Prison Policy Initiative, a left-leaning policy group, compiled its “States of Emergency” report with data from The Marshall Project, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The COVID Prison Project and UCLA’s COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project.

The report found 6,114 COVID-19 cases from the start of the pandemic in early 2020 through March 1, 2021, at Kansas Department of Corrections facilities.

But after vaccines became available, the state prison system saw 72 cases from March through Sept. 2.

Charlie Hunt, the deputy director of the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment, said vaccinations have proven their effect in jails and prisons.

“If we can get as many people vaccinated as possible,” he said, “it’s going to provide protection for both the individual and for the community.”

Mitigation strategies like social distancing can be difficult in correctional facilities because they weren’t built to handle a pandemic, said Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

“When a vaccine holds up in a prison, that really tells you it has a lot of power to control the infections,” Adalja said. “We know in the pre-vaccine era, prisons were hotbeds of spread.”

Some prisons still struggle to manage the virus. Four correctional facilities were listed as COVID-19 clusters by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Friday morning. The Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex in Topeka had 24 total cases of COVID-19 by mid-August before it reported 19 cases since then. That’s the second-highest total of any active cluster in the state behind a USD 323 middle school.

Kansans under 18 years old currently have the lowest vaccination percentage of any age group in the state, but vaccinations for children 12-18 were only approved months ago.

Wanda Bertram, spokesperson for the Prison Policy Initiative, said states should also consider reducing the prison population by releasing more inmates before the end of their sentences. She said the close quarters of jails and prisons remain a threat to foster clusters of infections, particularly when nearly a fourth of inmates have yet to get vaccinated.

“We’ve known from the beginning of the pandemic, that just as in nursing homes and in other crowded areas, this virus spreads very, very fast in prisons,” she said. “The only way to really slow it down is to let people go home.”

Bertram said prisons were already overcrowded before the pandemic. Kansas got an “F” from the States of the Emergency report, primarily because it didn’t embrace aggressive early release programs. Another 42 other states also got an “F.”

The state also received a failing grade on data availability from UCLA’s Behind Bars study, noting it couldn’t find the number of tests conducted for staff or inmates. As of Monday, the Kansas Department of Corrections still hadn’t provided the number of inmates it has tested throughout the pandemic.

“Ultimately, getting vaccination rates high enough to mitigate transmission is going to be the way out of this, particularly with variants like delta,” Hunt said. “Vaccination is going to be the most effective way to turn the pandemic.”

Blaise Mesa reports on criminal justice and social services for the Kansas News Service in Topeka. You can follow him on Twitter @Blaise_Mesa or email him at [email protected].

The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.

Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.

See more at https://www.kcur.org/news/2021-09-14/kansas-inmates-have-higher-vaccination-rates-and-fewer-new-covid-cases-than-the-rest-of-us.

Kansas Republicans raise objections to Biden’s expansive vaccine mandate

by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — State and federal Republican lawmakers from Kansas reinforced opposition to government-issued COVID-19 vaccination mandates in wake of President Joe Biden’s plan to confront a surge in coronavirus illness and death by increasing pressure on millions of people to get shots.

Biden said the U.S. Department of Labor would issue an emergency rule requiring all businesses with more than 100 employees to compel their workers to be fully vaccinated or test negative at least once a week. That edict would apply to about 80 million workers.

In addition, the Democratic president said Thursday he would issue an executive order requiring all executive branch employees and federal contractors to be vaccinated. Nearly 300,000 educators at federally run school programs must be vaccinated. He also intends to broaden a vaccination requirement for health care workers treating patients on Medicaid and Medicare in nursing homes, hospitals and at-home care settings.

U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a COVID-19 vaccinated Republican, said there was no doubt vaccines produced through the ingenuity of medical laboratories delivered the best opportunity for the United States to help draw the pandemic to a close.

He said he would continue to urge Kansans to be vaccinated, but mandates issued by government officials for vaccinations went too far.

“These decisions should be left to each individual, and that decision should be guided by conversations with trusted doctors and not dictated by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.,” Moran said. “Furthermore, this government overreach comes at the expense of small business owners who are trying to strike a balance between keeping their businesses safe and open, and respecting their employees’ personal health decisions.”

He said Biden risked deepening public division regarding vaccines. He expects some employees to drop out of the work force in protest.

U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, a physician who has been vaccinated for COVID-19, said Biden’s directives were likely to be struck down by the courts. He claimed Biden’s response to the surge in infections, hospitalizations and fatalities exacerbated by the delta variant of the virus was a “terrifying glimpse of the new marxist Dem Party.”

“POTUS’ vaccination decree is an all-out assault on private business, our civil liberties and our entire constitutional system of limited government,” Marshall said.

Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson and Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman, who both contracted COVID-19 in 2020, joined with their GOP leadership colleagues in the Legislature to criticize Biden’s plan.

“Tyranny through executive order is not how we govern in a free society,” Masterson said.

Ryckman said Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, a Republican candidate for governor, should take action to block the president’s “egregious abuse of power” and shield Kansans from “this type of executive overreach from becoming the new normal.”

Schmidt, who has been vaccinated and endorsed it as a preventative measure against the coronvairus, said Biden didn’t have authority to decree a national vaccine mandate or to “punish private businesses that refuse to discriminate against employees based on their health status.”

“If the president’s overreaching rhetoric becomes federal action, then rest assured we will vigorously challenge it,” Schmidt said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Ron Estes, the 4th District congressman from Wichita, said Biden deployed “bully tactics” in a bid to turn the tide against COVID-19. In the past, the GOP lawmaker declined to reveal his vaccination status.

“Congress and the Supreme Court must take immediate action to make clear that this mandate will not stand. Individuals and parents should make the decisions regarding the medicines they receive. President Biden has willfully overstepped his authority,” Estes said.

U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, a Republican who contracted COVID-19 in January, said Biden’s vaccination mandate was “dictatorial behavior” harmful to businesses struggling to navigate with a labor shortage. The 2nd District congressman also said rural Kansas hospitals were stretched thin and couldn’t afford to lose employees opposed to the vaccine.

Biden’s mandate conflicts with well-established ideas of religious freedom and personal liberty, said U.S. Rep. Tracey Mann, who represents the rural 1st District and has been vaccinated.

“It fails to include exemptions for those who would decline vaccination based on religious or medical concerns, or even for those willing to produce negative COVID-19 tests in lieu of getting vaccinated,” he said.

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/briefs/kansas-republicans-raise-objections-to-bidens-expansive-vaccine-mandate/.

BPU now helping with KERA rental and utility application process

Rent, utility and internet-access assistance offered

The Kansas Emergency Rental Assistance (KERA) program was launched on March 15. This state program is accepting applications to provide rent, utility, and internet-access assistance to households experiencing financial hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The KERA program application deadline is May 1, 2022.

The Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Public Utilities will help in the application process by verifying if the household qualifies for assistance, will review the requirements and documents needed for renters and landlords to apply and will track their application status after the application is submitted, a BPU spokesman stated.

Customers needing assistance in the application process may call a special dedicated line at 913-573-9123 or email at [email protected] and a BPU KERA advocate will assist them in this detailed application process.

The KERA assistance covers up to 12 months of rent and rental arrears (money past due), up to three months of prospective rent at a time, even if the household does not have rental arrears, and past due residential utility and home energy (electric, gas, water, sewer and trash services), and internet costs.

The KERA program is funded through the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021, which provided the state of Kansas nearly $200 million in rental assistance funding. The Kansas Housing Resources Corporation (KHRC) serves as the administrator of the majority of these funds through the KERA program.

Those eligible to apply include tenants who rent their home, tenants whose 2020 household income did not exceed 80% of the area’s median income, households where at least one member is experiencing documented financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, or at least one member of the household is uncertain of where they will stay or may become homeless without housing assistance.

To apply for the program, both the tenant and their landlord must apply online via a joint application process. The landlord completes online certification and the tenant submits the online application. The landlord and tenant are then notified when the application is processed. If approved, the landlord and or/service provider receive funds directly from the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation (KHRC). The landlord and or/service provider than applies assistance to the tenant’s account.

To learn more about the Kansas Emergency Rental Assistance Program, the qualification and application process, visit the KHRC website at https://kshousingcorp.org/emergency-rental-assistance/ or call them at 785-217-2001.

The process after application for BPU customers: When a customer makes an application for these funds from the state of Kansas, the customer will receive a proof of prequalified application notice back from the state just identifying the application as submitted.

Applicants must notify BPU Customer Service as soon as they receive the email application notice from the state. BPU will allow the customer to receive service for 30 days or more without disconnection while it works with the state of Kansas to gain a better understanding of the KERA’s process and adjust accordingly.

If the customer’s prequalified application is rejected, the customer must also contact BPU and the utility will advise the customer on making application for other assistance they may qualify for. When BPU customers receive their application notice, they should not only call customer service at 913-573-9190 but also send their notice from the state to [email protected].

BPU customers are encouraged to stay current with their bills to avoid getting too far behind and if anyone has any BPU billing or customer service questions, they can call 913-573-9190 and a utility representative is available to assist, the BPU spokesman stated.

  • Information from BPU