More than 50 new COVID-19 cases found in KC area as city extends stay-at-home order
The number of coronavirus cases and deaths rose Thursday in the Kansas City metropolitan area as the city’s stay-at-home order was extended by three weeks.
Across the metro, an additional 58 people tested positive, bringing the area’s total to 1,447.
Seven people died, raising the total to 76 in Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Wyandotte and Johnson counties in Kansas.
Six of the deaths were in Kansas: three in Johnson County and three in Wyandotte County; Jackson County recorded one.
More than two-thirds of the people dying from COVID-19 in Wyandotte County are black, according to newly released data by county health officials.
The county launched an equity task force this week to address the disparities.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said the city’s stay-at-home order will be extended from April 24 to May 15.
The order allows residents to seek medical care or supplies, food and to go to work at an essential business. Otherwise, people are to stay at home.
Lucas said the order has saved lives.
“Had we not done this or if we just pulled back today, particularly because we still have a fairly, I think, high infection rate … we would actually see a lot of the hard work we’ve done over recent weeks evaporate fairly quickly,” he said.
Other cities and counties in the area are also expected to extend their orders.
Kansas extended its order to May 3.
Steve Stites, chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System, said officials are trying to weigh health and safety with the economic toll the virus is taking.
“As a health-care worker here at the University of Kansas Health System, what I can say is, the more you can stay at home, the more you can maintain six feet of distance, the more you do those things, the healthier you will be,” Stites said. “And so as far as extending a stay-at-home order from a health-care perspective, that’s great. From an economic-social health perspective, that’s a whole different question.”
Throughout the pandemic, the health system has admitted 92 patients for COVID-19. Of those, there have been 51 discharges and eight deaths.
Stites said the conversation will eventually start focusing on relaxing restrictions.
“It’s really not a reopening,” he said. “It’s a new opening. It’s a world that we’ve not been in before since 1918. And COVID-19 is here. And as we think about venturing out into society, it will be so important to still follow these new rules that we haven’t had to follow in the past if we really want to stay healthy, if we really want to prevent another surge that could come on in June or July or whenever that may be. The world’s going to be a little different.”
Missouri has recorded 5,111 cases as of Thursday afternoon. Kansas has identified 1,588 cases.
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 3:22 PM.
