KC Mayor Lucas should be angry that Clay, Cass counties shortened stay-at-home orders

Clay and Cass counties are over this coronavirus shutdown, and so will end their stay-at-home orders on May 3.

Of course, if their COVID-19 cases spike as a result, it’s Kansas City’s hospitals that will be overwhelmed.

But with Missouri Gov. Mike Parson talking about how nearly every business in the state will be wide open again as of May 4, the temptation was apparently too much.

That’s a head-spinning reversal for Clay County, where officials who seem to have contempt for their own citizens just last week said they would extend their order until May 15, as Kansas City has.

And Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is right to be irritated.

“Less than one week ago,” Lucas said in a statement, “every health director in our nine-county bistate region advised our region’s stay-at-home order remain in place until May 15 based on new infections, inadequate testing and insufficient contact tracing capabilities. I’m not sure what has changed.”

Let’s see, it can’t be that new infections are a thing of the past, since the Kansas City metropolitan area’s coronavirus count continues to climb.

What’s changed is the way Parson talks about the crisis. Just over a week ago, he said we’d open back up gradually, carefully and only when widespread testing tells us it’s safe to do so.

Only a day later, though, he said he’d like to see most Missourians back to work right after May 3. Then he suggested that would happen even without widespread testing.

On Wednesday, he said, “almost every business in the state of Missouri will be able to open their doors” on May 4. On Friday, he said even gyms, hair salons and barber shops could open, though social distancing there will be impossible.

And testing, testing? Anyone remember what he said about testing?

Asked what about his earlier statement that that could only happen when the state is testing 40,000 people every week, he said, “We’re going to get to that point” by expanding the testing criteria. We still don’t have those tests, though, and are very unlikely to get to that point by May 4, despite what the governor said about how he’d keep pushing county health directors to do more testing. That’s rich, since health directors would love to be able to do that, and need no prodding from Parson.

In a statement about reopening, Clay County officials said what’s changed is that while there continue to be new cases, the numbers are “consistently low” due to the stay-at-home order. It’s working, so let’s stop?

They also said that if COVID-19 cases do in the future “increase to unacceptable levels, guidance may become stricter and the stay-at-home order may resume or restart.” That’s more likely to happen if we open again too soon.

Testing has “greatly improved over the last week,” the statement says, though Lucas said that’s not the case, either here in Kansas City or in the state as a whole.

In his statement, the mayor said, “I badly want our region to get back to work — but the tradeoff cannot be someone losing their parent, partner, child, or friend to COVID-19. We will continue to listen to our public health professionals — not the political winds — as we work to protect our community’s health, which is essential to our City’s long-term economic vitality.”

Lucas is doing everything he can to protect Kansas Citians from this pandemic, and it’s a shame he isn’t getting more support from either the governor or other local officials. By the time they come to regret this decision, it will be too late to undo the damage it’s sure to cause.

This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 1:00 PM with the headline "KC Mayor Lucas should be angry that Clay, Cass counties shortened stay-at-home orders."