Kansas City metro surpasses 1,900 coronavirus cases and records three more deaths
Three deaths and 28 additional cases of the new coronavirus were reported Monday in the Kansas City metropolitan area.
A total of 1,921 cases have been found in Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas.
Wyandotte County has the highest number of cases with 573. Kansas City has the second highest with 500.
Last Monday, the metro added 22 new cases.
The metro has recorded 117 deaths from COVID-19 with two recent deaths in Wyandotte County and one in Johnson County.
The stay-at-home order in Clay County as well as Kansas’ order covering Johnson and Wyandotte counties are set to expire at the end of May 3.
Orders in Kansas City and Jackson and Platte counties are slated to end May 15.
Steve Stites, chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System, said regardless of the date, there is a calculated risk.
“Whenever we open, unless we actually have effective therapy or we have vaccinations or both, there will always be risk at reopening society for increased spread of the disease and bringing about another surge,” he said. “Ideally the way you avoid that is having such widespread, easily accessible and rapidly returnable testing that you’re able to know when someone’s sick so they can self-isolate or stay isolated at home. We don’t have that yet.”
Four pop-up testing sites around Kansas City will test 500 residents this week. Spots for the free tests were filled less than 24 hours after the city announced the sites.
Missouri reported 6,171 positive cases on Monday. A total of 70,932 patients had been tested.
Kansas consistently ranks last or near-last among states in per-capita testing. As of Monday afternoon, 3,328 people had tested positive. Another 23,839 tests were negative, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
