COVID-19 news: Outbreaks in KC area nursing homes and food plant affect hundreds
On Tuesday, Wyandotte County health officials said four more residents of the Riverbend Post Acute Rehabilitation facility had died.
The Kansas City, Kansas, facility has reported 132 positive cases of the new coronavirus — 105 residents and 27 staff. Three are still hospitalized, and the facility has recorded a total of 36 deaths.
Clusters of COVID-19 cases have infected hundreds of people in the Kansas City area, including more than a hundred who work at a food plant in St. Joseph, Missouri. The disease has killed dozens of people in the metro area and has hit nursing homes hard.
Two other nursing facilities — Delaware Highlands Assisted Living and Life Care Center of Kansas City — have reported COVID-19 outbreaks in Wyandotte County.
Two more deaths were reported this week at Brighton Gardens in Prairie Village, which has the most cases in Johnson County with 45. Eight residents have died, according to information provided by the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment. Forest Creek Memory Care in Overland Park has reported 24 cases and seven deaths.
Nursing facilities account for 73 percent of Johnson County’s total number of deaths from COVID-19.
Nursing homes across the country are among the hardest hit during the epidemic. Residents are elderly and often in poor health.
According to information The Star has obtained, at least 30 long-term care facilities in the Kansas City area have reported COVID-19 cases.
A resident of the Riverside Nursing and Rehabilitation Center has tested positive for COVID-19, the Platte County Health Department announced Tuesday night.
The positive test marks the first coronavirus case identified within a long-term care facility in Platte County, it said.
KC region
More than 400 workers at a St. Joseph food plant have tested positive for the new coronavirus despite showing no symptoms, health officials said Tuesday.
Sixty of the workers at Triumph Foods who tested positive were Kansas City residents and 78 were Wyandotte County residents.
“The processing plant cases from St. Joseph show how interconnected and mobile we are,” said Frank Thompson, deputy director of the Kansas City Health Department, in a statement on Tuesday afternoon.
Political leaders in the Kansas City area remain divided about how to approach the public health response in the region.
Some mayors and county officials, particularly those representing Missouri-side suburban cities and counties, said that restrictions on commercial activity have strained local economies.
“I’m very concerned about our business owners,” said Blue Springs Mayor Carson Ross. “Some have closed doors and they are never reopening.”
Meanwhile, representatives from larger localities, like Kansas City, Independence and Kansas City, Kansas, urged caution in resuming normal daily activity in a region that has reported more than 3,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus.
Rex Archer, director of the Kansas City Health Department, said the region may have to shut down again.
“I think it’s going to be even more difficult to tighten up,” Archer said on a conference call of about 60 local government and public health officials arranged by the Mid-America Regional Council.
“Many of us are believing nationally as well as locally that we will have to tighten up by the end of June.”
Kansas has reported 5,458 cases including 137 deaths. Another 34,634 people have tested negative, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Missouri has confirmed 8,916 cases including 377 deaths. A total of 100,747 tests have been conducted, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said.
This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 11:59 AM.
