Johnson County needs 900 COVID-19 tests daily, official says. It’s not even close
As the economy slowly reopens, Johnson County needs to take on the enormous task of conducting 900 coronavirus tests each day to fully understand the prevalence of the disease, health officials said Thursday.
The county health department has not performed daily testing because it lacks enough supplies. Just over 8,100 people have been tested in the county of 600,000 residents — or roughly 1.3% of the population.
Sanmi Areola, public health director, warned county commissioners on Thursday that his goal “is very steep to meet.”
Still, some businesses and restaurants will be allowed to reopen in Johnson County on Monday, with social distancing restrictions.
State and local health experts have said more testing is necessary as residents leave their homes more frequently and return to workplaces.
Areola expects a rise in coronavirus cases once businesses reopen, making testing and contact tracing crucial to understanding whether it’s safe to move forward with opening the rest of the economy.
But widespread, on-demand testing has been largely unattainable in Kansas, which has ranked at the bottom of states testing for the novel coronavirus. While the state has been working to improve that, only about 1.4% of the Kansas population has been tested, compared to the U.S. total of 2.4%.
With limited testing being done by the state health department, Johnson County has funded its own $400,000 community testing program. It has been working with the University of Kansas Health System and other labs to test a random selection of the population, essential workers and individuals in nursing homes.
But still, the number of residents who have been tested has remained relatively low due to difficulty finding enough sample collection kits and nasal swabs. Areola said he continues to work with labs and the state health department to secure supplies.
“Our primary tactic is dependent on a very robust surveillance system,” Areola said. “We have to do a lot more testing and then contact tracing. We want to be sure of our resources, our testing resources and our sample collection resources, moving forward.”
He does not expect the county to have the supplies to start testing 900 people each day.
Health department spokeswoman Barbara Mitchell said the county’s goal is to ramp up testing gradually, starting with 1,500 tests per week.
Areola said the county is working with the KU Health System to secure the lab capacity to analyze up to 1,000 tests each week.
“I think the news is good coming from them,” he said.
He hopes the county can eventually test up to 1,000 residents per day — a goal based on the county’s population size.
The county plans to operate drive-thru testing sites, as well as a couple of other locations where residents can be tested by appointment. Areola said plans also include expanding testing at nursing homes — some of which have had the largest outbreaks in the county — as well as among the homeless and low-income populations, and people of color, who have had a higher rate of cases than the general population.
The health department also needs to ramp up its case investigation and contact tracing operation, he said.
“Once we have increased activity, it becomes our job to design a new approach to identifying cases and containing the spread,” Areola said. “That’s why we have to do a lot more testing and need a lot more resources for contact tracing. That becomes a primary tool.”
As of Thursday afternoon, Johnson County had reported 548 coronavirus cases and 45 deaths.
Areola said that the county is starting to see a decline in new cases and hospitalizations, although outbreaks at long-term care facilities remain especially troubling. At Brighton Gardens in Prairie Village, at least 57 cases and nine deaths have been reported. The county has decided to test all residents at that facility.
