Not vaccinated? If you work for Johnson County, you must get weekly COVID tests
Johnson County officials confirmed Friday that the county will require its employees to either provide proof they have been vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.
As COVID-19 cases climb, County Manager Penny Postoak Ferguson this past week announced a mandatory testing program for unvaccinated employees, “in an effort to maintain continuity of government and uninterrupted services while helping keep our employees safe,” said county spokeswoman Theresa Freed.
Beginning Aug. 23, government employees who are not fully vaccinated must get tested once a week. Employees who work in departments providing direct care to residents are subject to tests up to twice weekly. Employees can opt out if they provide proof they are fully vaccinated.
It’s a similar policy to those implemented in both Jackson County and Kansas City. Following their lead, Kansas City Public Schools also announced it would require employees to get vaccinated or be tested each week.
Postoak Ferguson said that as of Aug. 11, only 46% of county employees had reported being fully vaccinated.
“With the sharp increase of the delta variant, we want employees to be safe. Vaccination is one of the best tools we have to help prevent serious illness or passing the virus on to our colleagues or the people we serve,” she said in a statement provided to The Star. “COVID-19 remains a health risk for Johnson County residents and staff and a threat to the county’s ability to provide necessary and uninterrupted service.”
On Friday, Johnson County data showed that nearly 58% of eligible residents were fully vaccinated.
But the number of daily new COVID-19 cases remains on a concerning trajectory. On Friday, the county’s incidence rate — or the number of new cases per 100,000 people in the past two weeks — was 372. On July 1, that rate was only 38 per 100,000.
The county’s positivty rate — or the percentage of positive tests over the past 14 days — was 9.4%, up from 3.1% on July 1. The last time the rate was this high was after cases peaked this past winter.
County health officials have warned that hospitalizations, as well as COVID-19 outbreaks in businesses, day cares and elsewhere, have been on the rise. They also have emphasized that lower vaccinations elsewhere in the metro continue to cause concern, as residents regularly commute to and from Johnson County.
This story was originally published August 14, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
