‘Really bad idea’: Doctors warn of health danger from Kansas City COVID-19 protests
Protesters planning demonstrations in the Kansas City region next week over COVID-19 stay-at-home orders risk infecting one another and their communities, doctors warned on Friday.
“It’s a really bad idea,” said Steven Stites, chief medical officer with the University of Kansas Health System. “If you take a virus that’s highly contagious and respirable and you want to open up society, is there a worse way to make your point than to make everybody sick?
“Lets just be blunt about it because that’s the danger.”
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, also discouraged the protests, planned for Kansas City, Topeka and Jefferson City next week. During a media briefing with physicians, Moran said he understands that people are restless and want to get the country moving again, something he hears from Kansans every day.
On Thursday, the White House unveiled a three-phase plan to get people back to work and the economy running again.
“I would encourage people not to gather,” said Moran. “I’m all for public protest. It’s part of our democracy, and people have every right to complain and suggest and encourage government to do different things than what’s being done, or to support what’s being done. But it ought not to be done by gathering in large crowds.”
Plans are underway to launch public demonstrations similar to an “Operation Gridlock” event in Lansing, Michigan, where vehicles with horns blaring clogged the streets around the state capitol. Some protesters gathered on the capitol grounds, flouting social-distancing rules.
Protests are set to take place over the weekend in several other cities, including Nashville, Denver and Phoenix.
On Friday morning, President Trump tweeted that states should be “liberated,” apparently from stay-at-home orders. One of the tweets said: “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”
He also tweeted: “Liberate Minnesota!” He mentioned Michigan, too.
But Trump has also conceded that stay-at-home orders are up to individual governors and that any reopening should be gradual.
A flyer advertising a demonstration set for noon Monday in Kansas City urges protesters to “flood the streets of downtown Kansas City and demand that businesses be allowed to open up, people allowed to work, and lives returned to normal.”
It criticizes Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, who on Thursday extended the city’s stay-at-home orders until May 15. Jackson County did the same. On the Kansas side, Johnson and Wyandotte counties said they are following the lead of the state and extending orders until May 3, but they are prepared to go longer if necessary.
“I think there was a hope and anticipation that this might be behind us or we could see the light at the end of the tunnel by now … and that we could get back to whatever normal soon may be,” said Moran.
“But I also think that many people recognize that it is important that this personal responsibility … not only does it protect the person, but it protects his or her family and their neighbors and their neighborhood and their community.”
Kansans have caught the virus in a crowd, and died, Dr. Lee Norman, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said during the briefing.
“We had a church gathering here in Kansas that had 50 people infected, six deaths, and they went to nine counties so far with the illness. That’s how the spread occurred,” said Norman.
A cluster of coronavirus cases and deaths is now linked to the Miracle Temple Church of God in Christ in Wyandotte County after it hosted a conference in mid-March that county health officials said was attended by 150 to 200 people.
“That’s one church gathering and that’s certainly much smaller than flooding the streets, I assure you,” said Norman.
Moran said decisions about when to reopen society will be made “based on science, medicine and availability of health care services.”
“And I understand Kansans in particular, and I don’t think it’s any different than Missourians, we don’t like being told what to do,” the senator said. “We don’t like having our freedoms restricted. And we certainly don’t like these instructions from government and government far away, as in Washington, D.C.
“So there is this natural dissatisfaction with the circumstances we’re in and people, in addition to worrying about their health, have to worry about taking care of their families … so we’re going to experience this anxiety.”
Stites said because the area hasn’t experienced the kind of surge in cases that hit New York, “people are getting a little overconfident about their ability to master it.
“But the reality is, the virus is here. We have 35 patients in beds with coronavirus, with COVID-19. And all it takes is a few big gatherings and that number will explode.
“The way to open up society is not to make everybody sick. The way to open up society is exercise personal responsibility, to be certain that you protect yourself, protect your family and protect everybody else. Otherwise, what happens is, we’ll be right back to a shelter in place because we’ll be having overwhelmed hospital resources and it will be like New York City.”
Some of the people talking about the upcoming protest on social media are critical of Lucas, saying he needlessly put people out of work over a disease that some believe has been over-hyped.
“This is not a hoax, it is not made up, and it is not influenza,” said Stites. “If you operate from that premise, any one of those three points, then you have a danger of making a whole lot of people sick and watching your loved ones die. Bad choice. Bad choice.”
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