Johnson County gets first shipment of COVID-19 kits. Here’s who’s eligible for a test
Johnson County is receiving its first shipment of new coronavirus test kits this week — as the county begins to roll out a $400,000 program aimed at better collecting data on the outbreak.
Sanmi Areola, public health director, said the goal is to test about 4,000 randomly selected residents — with or without symptoms — to analyze how the virus is spreading throughout the community. But with a shortage of test kits, and only 700 swabs available in the first shipment, Areola said the county will test only high-risk residents, for now.
The kits — including 500 from Quest Diagnostics and 200 from the state health department — will be used to test health care workers, grocery store employees, first responders and nursing home residents, he said.
Meanwhile, as the Johnson County health department awaits more highly sought test kits, it is asking all residents to fill out an online survey. It asks about symptoms or lack of symptoms, demographic and contact information. It’s available at jocogov.org.
Residents will be asked to complete the survey several times in the next few weeks so that officials can compare results and analyze trends.
“Completing the survey is voluntary, but we ask that as many people as possible participate to get a good picture of how the coronavirus is spreading in the community,” Areola said.
The first survey responses should be submitted by 10 a.m. Friday.
Random testing
Because of statewide shortages, the health department has only been testing people who are hospitalized.
Worried that limited testing is making the outbreak more difficult to track, the Johnson County Board of Commissioners last week allocated $400,000 to expand testing. Areola hopes testing a larger portion of the county will allow officials to determine if mitigation strategies, such as the stay at home order, are effective.
But a shortage of sample collection kits and swabs has led to a slow start, Areola told commissioners on Monday. While the shipment of 700 test kits was welcome news, it is not enough to start wider community testing. And continuing to secure test kits will remain a challenge, especially as communities across the country race to purchase them.
Areola hopes to conduct tests in four phases, with 400 residents at a time. A marketing firm is helping the county develop a randomized sampling pool, send out the online surveys, then instruct selected residents to go get tested at drive-thru locations.
As more testing is done, the health department will evaluate the county’s efforts at containing the outbreak.
Tuesday morning, Johnson County had reported 10 deaths and 217 cases of coronavirus. Statewide, there are 900 cases and 27 deaths.
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 4:46 PM.
