COVID-19 news: KC hospitals refuse patient transfers, Missouri AG sues over mask rule
Here’s the latest on COVID-19 in the Kansas City area:
Kansas City hospitals refuse record numbers of patients
Hospitals in the Kansas City area are refusing to accept patients from other hospitals on a daily basis as they are being overwhelmed with the surge of the delta variant of the coronavirus.
“The past few weeks have been like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Dr. Tim Williamson, vice president of quality and safety with the University of Kansas Health System, said during a medical update Friday morning. “We actually are currently on pace to be over 2,000 requests for the month which is just the highest number that we’ve ever seen.”
Because of the large number of requests, the health system is only able to accept about 30% of them, he said. The other 70% are turned away because the volume doesn’t match up with the hospital’s capacity.
AG Schmitt sues Jackson County over mask order
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is suing Jackson County over an emergency public health order reinstating a mask mandate, calling the requirement “ridiculous” and an “intrusion.”
The lawsuit, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court on Thursday, contends that the mandate is arbitrary, capricious and unlawful. It is the attorney general’s latest legal challenge brought against a Missouri local government with a mask mandate as Schmitt has waged a broad attack against the face coverings.
The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the mask mandate is unlawful and an injunction halting its effect.
Masklessness allowed to avoid ‘mini-riot’ at public meeting
As dozens of Kansas Citians decried public health guidance and called the city’s current mask mandate tyrannical Wednesday night, the order itself went unenforced as soon as constituents found their seats.
A City Council committee voted Wednesday to send an ordinance extending Kansas City’s mask mandate into late September to full council. Nearly 100 mostly maskless community members voiced opposition inside the Kansas City Regional Police Academy, where the meeting was held.
Morgan Said, a spokeswoman with Mayor Quinton Lucas’s office, said the inaction was purposeful and aimed at avoiding “mini-riot.”
“In a crowd comprised mostly of folks who compared wearing masks to tyranny, communism, and child abuse, it was disappointing, but not surprising, that many attendees elected to break the City’s rules,” Said said.
School district approves mandate after cases spike
The Turner school district, one of the few in the area that had made masks optional, is now requiring them — following several COVID-19 cases among students and staff and “a significant amount of quarantines of unvaccinated, unmasked individuals” just six days into the new school year.
The district in Kansas City, Kansas, brought students back to classrooms last week without a mask mandate in place, despite warnings from health officials as coronavirus cases surge. As of Wednesday morning, the district reported 23 active cases among students, and four staff cases.
Spokeswoman Lauren Aiello said she did not have a specific number of individuals required to quarantine after being exposed to the virus, but officials decided the numbers were significant enough to change the mask policy.
The Star’s Sarah Ritter, Bill Lukitsch, Cortlynn Stark and Anna Spoerre contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 20, 2021 at 7:28 AM.
