COVID-19 news: Overnight jump in Kansas 10th highest since since first reported case
Since Friday, 250 more cases of the new coronavirus were reported in Kansas, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The state began reopening on May 4 as officials started putting more contact tracers in place.
Members of a contract tracing team interview those who test positive for COVID-19, sometimes breaking the news of their infection to them. Contact tracers answer their questions, ask who they’ve been in contact with recently, and tell those close to them to go into quarantine.
In total, 6,751 Kansans have tested positive for the new coronavirus and 157 have died as of 12:30 p.m. Saturday. The overnight jump in cases is the 10th highest since Kansas’ first reported case on March 7.
Wyandotte County has 1,045 cases Saturday, an increase of 53 cases, according to state data. The metro county has seen 64 deaths, according to county health officials.
Johnson County reported 10 new cases and four more deaths Saturday, bringing the total to 583 infections and 51 deaths.
In Missouri, 9,666 people tested positive as of 2 p.m. Saturday and 472 had died, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. This was an increase of 177 cases and 23 deaths from the prior day.
Missouri has reported more cases than Kansas but has also tested more people.
The United States surpassed 1,298,100 confirmed cases and more than 78,000 deaths reported as of 2 p.m. Saturday, according to a database maintained by Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide, more than 3,996,100 cases and nearly 277,400 deaths were reported.
Contact tracers
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to tax local resources, Kansas officials are assembling a 400-volunteer contact tracing force to assist the counties. As of Saturday, about 200 people had been brought on.
But a national contract tracing plan developed by top public health experts suggests Kansas may remain short of the tracing capacity ultimately needed despite the volunteers.
The proposal, from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, calls for the hiring of 100,000 tracers nationwide. Relative to its population, Kansas would need about 800 additional tracers.
“In order to save lives … the United States must implement a robust and comprehensive system to identify nearly all COVID-19 cases and trace close contacts of each identified case,” according to the report released April 10.
The additional tracers could be “strategically deployed” to areas with the greatest need, the report says.
As of Saturday, 43,187 negative tests had been returned, meaning Kansans are testing positive for COVID-19 at a rate of 13.5%, an increase from prior weeks.
At this time, some Kansas counties are moving to expand their tracing operations. Sanmi Areola, director of the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment, said the county needs more resources for tracing.
The county health department has five staff members who do case investigation and contact tracing, plus it has trained about 30 additional staff members who may be pulled from their regular jobs as testing increases. If more are needed, Areola said the county would rely on volunteers, such as school district nurses.
“We’re going to need to really enhance our capacity beyond what we currently have,” Areola said.
Kansas City restaurants to reopen
Kansas City restaurants and bars will still be allowed to reopen next week, Mayor Quinton Lucas said after announcing a coronavirus outbreak at a Northland senior home that drove him to consider extending the reopen date.
A host of nonessential businesses that had been closed under stay-at-home orders since March were allowed to open earlier this week under strict capacity rules. But restaurants, bars, gyms, museums, the Kansas City Zoo, government buildings and city-maintained playground equipment were expected to stay closed until May 15.
At a news conference Thursday, Lucas said he wasn’t sure if those places could reopen after seven residents and four staff members at McCrite Plaza at Briarcliff tested positive for COVID-19. He said the outbreak there — as well as an outbreak among workers at the Triumph Foods plant in St. Joseph — might hinder the Health Department’s ability to issue guidance to restaurants.
But Lucas announced in a news release Friday that the May 15 reopening was still on.
“Still, the last several days have demonstrated the harm that can be caused by asymptomatic individuals walking around with this virus and consequently infecting others,” Lucas said. “As we continue working to increase our testing capacity and contact tracing capabilities, I implore all who can to continue working from home and to limit all non-essential outings. And, please, stay home if you are sick.”
Lucas plans to hold a press conference Monday to announce guidelines for restaurants.
Help for restaurant workers
The Kemper Family Foundations has donated $1 million to the Missouri Restaurant Association Education Foundation to help Kansas City area restaurant workers affected by the COVID-19 shutdown. The group used the donation to establish the Independent Restaurant Workers Relief Fund.
The fund is now offering one-time $500 grants to industry employees who last worked for an independently owned and operated restaurant or small restaurant group in Missouri or in Johnson, Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties in Kansas. People who were furloughed, had their hours reduced or were laid off are eligible.
COVID discovered in Kansas wastewater
Detectable levels of COVID-19 were discovered in samples taken from 10 Kansas wastewater plants, according to preliminary findings released this week by researchers in Kansas.
The initial results come after the Kansas Department of Health and Environment joined the University of Kansas School of Engineering on the project to determine if genetic remnants of COVID-19 could be found in wastewater. Officials haven’t identified the locations of the plants.
While health officials say the risk of the virus being transmitted through sewerage systems is thought to be low, detecting COVID-19 in wastewater is indicative of the disease being present in the community, the state said in a news release announcing the study.
In an email Friday morning, a spokeswoman for KDHE declined to release individual results but said counties sampled included Brown, Douglas, Miami, Franklin and Shawnee.
Officials caution the project is still in its preliminary stages, and the initial results are “too variable and uncertain to make actual estimates of the extent of infection in those communities.”
The Star’s Jonathan Shorman, Kaitlyn Schwers, Allison Kite and Joyce Smith contributed.
This story was originally published May 9, 2020 at 3:24 PM.
