COVID-19 update: Johnson County nursing home deaths detailed, renters fear eviction
This weekend, Johnson County health officials released a list of local nursing facilities with COVID-19 infections, and the number of cases and deaths in each.
That list shows that 15 facilities in the county have reported a total of 114 COVID-19 cases, which makes up one-quarter of Johnson County’s total number. Eleven locations have more than one case.
The news comes as restrictions on public gatherings in Kansas are expected to be loosened, and a wave of evictions is expected in Kansas and Missouri as short-term protections for renters are set to expire.
In Johnson County, 26 residents of nursing homes have died of the new coronavirus in at least eight different facilities in the past several weeks.
Nursing home deaths accounted for 70% of Johnson County’s total as of Friday night.
While much attention has been focused on neighboring Wyandotte County and the Riverbend rehabilitation and nursing home, before Friday evening little had been released by Johnson County health officials about outbreaks there.
The virus’s toll on certain facilities in the state’s largest county had gone largely unknown among the public, specific details kept from frustrated family members whose loved ones are isolated inside nursing homes in Overland Park, Prairie Village, Lenexa and Olathe.
County health officials provided only overall numbers and, early on, identified just three facilities that had cases. They repeatedly refused to provide the names of all the affected facilities and the number of deaths and cases in each.
Dr. Sanmi Areola, director of the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment, insisted it was a privacy issue.
But The Star continued asking questions, and eventually officials released more information.
Kansas to loosen restrictions
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly plans to issue new coronavirus restrictions on May 4 for public gatherings that are “significantly less restrictive” than current rules, attorneys said in a legal filing outlining an agreement with churches that had sued to continue holding larger in-person services.
Attorneys for Kelly and the churches — First Baptist Church in Dodge City and Calvary Baptist Church in Junction City — submitted a joint motion on Saturday asking a federal judge to extend a temporary restraining order that had allowed the churches to hold larger meetings while following social distancing rules.
The motion, if accepted by Judge John Broomes, resolves a fight over religious liberty and public health that had pitted pastors against the Democratic governor, who has been condemned by Republican lawmakers for limiting in-person religious gatherings to 10 people.
The Kansas Supreme Court allowed Kelly’s mass gathering ban to extend to religious services. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Wichita, contended the governor’s executive order violated their constitutional rights to the free exercise of religious, freedom of speech, right to assemble and due process.
Evictions loom in Kansas and Missouri
With short-term protections for renters set to sunset soon, the pandemic has tenant advocates fearing a looming crisis of evictions and homelessness as more than half a million Kansans and Missourians find themselves suddenly out of work.
But landlords and property owners, with their own bills to pay, say they aren’t in a position to offer widespread relief to renters who can’t pay.
With her stimulus payment in hand and a small cushion of personal savings, Victoria Altic was able to cover this month’s rent on her three-bedroom Springfield apartment.
But now, with the May rent nearly due, she’s worried that she and her two children may be on the verge of homelessness. Altic was laid off from her job as a restaurant cook. And a promising position with the U.S. Census Bureau is now up in the air after the federal agency delayed its count of all Americans.
“I’m scared,” she said. “I feel like I’m running out of options.”
