Kansas City area discusses extending COVID-19 shutdown up to 3 more weeks, mayor says
Discussions are underway about extending the area’s stay at home orders to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said Monday.
The 30-day orders in Kansas City and surrounding counties are set to expire April 24.
Lucas told The Star that officials somewhat disagree on how long to extend the shutdown, but they would likely look at adding one to three more weeks.
“There are others and — you might even be able to assume the politics — who might suggest that we really want to get back to the functioning and the work of this economy sooner rather than later,” Lucas said in an interview Monday morning on KMBZ radio, apparently referencing Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, who resisted issuing such an order because of its effects on businesses.
Parson reversed course and issued a stay at home order earlier this month that has been criticized as lax for continuing to leave most decisions up to local governments.
Lucas added: “What I do not support is something that I think you saw in Virginia, where the governor there made an order until early June. I think that’s too far.”
During a press briefing on Friday, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, said state leaders are having conversations about extending the order beyond the state’s original April 19 expiration date. She said more information should be available early this week.
“My guess is yes, we will extend it,” Kelly said. “But we don’t have the details on that right now.”
In his daily news briefing on Monday, Parson said that his office was in “constant communication” with mayors of Missouri’s major cities, but that a decision on lifting his stay at home order wouldn’t come for a few more days. Parson said officials would look at public health data on COVID-19 in making their decision.
“Daily data that comes into this governor’s office from around the state of Missouri — how many people are in ICU beds, how many ventilators are out there, are we gaining on the number of people going into ICU beds, are we controlling the virus — all of those things have to be looked at on a daily basis,” Parson said.
That, he said, will help determine when business restrictions can be lifted and the state “can start opening up the economy.”
“We’re all going to be anxious to do that, and I realize that, but we’re really going to have to be patient for a little while longer to make sure that we’ve got this virus under control as much as we can have it under control.”
Across the country, local and state officials are weighing their own stay at home orders. St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said Monday that the county’s order would likely remain in effect until May, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In Illinois, according to the Chicago Tribune, officials are signaling their orders could extend beyond the end of April. Over the weekend, Los Angeles County extended its stay at home order through at least May 15, according to the Los Angeles Times.
At the same time, President Donald Trump this weekend spoke again of “reopening” the country as soon as possible.
“This country was not designed to be closed,” he said. “The cure cannot be worse than the problem.”
The White House’s current social distancing guidelines are set to expire at the end of the month.
Since the Kansas City area’s orders went into effect March 24, businesses have shuttered — either temporarily or permanently — and laid off workers. Unemployment claims have skyrocketed, and residents left without work have struggled to pay bills.
Asked if he was pushing for a three-week extension of the order, Lucas said he was likely to favor that sort of timeline “to make sure that we don’t see a rapid rate of reinfections.” Public health interests, not economic ones, should drive the conversation regarding any extension of the stay at home orders, Lucas said.
“There is no use in going through all of this work if only a few weeks later we start to see a significant community spread,” he said.
In an interview with The Star later on Monday, Lucas noted the hundreds of cases in Kansas City and hundreds more in surrounding counties.
“What that’s telling me is that we still have a significant number of infections, ones that if left unmitigated could actually lead to broad spread and could create more harm and ultimately more loss of life,” Lucas said.
Lucas said the city wants to limit the spread of the disease and, in turn, keep the coronavirus from overwhelming the city’s health care system.
Right now, Lucas said, the area’s hospitals are not overrun.
“I’m very confident right now that Kansas City … is able to handle what is projected to come to our ERs, to come to our ICUs,” Lucas said.
When the city does lift its stay at home order, Lucas said, reopening businesses and public spaces would likely be gradual.
“Let’s say that our order expires on April 24,” Lucas said. “It’s unlikely that on April 25, we have 40,000 people sitting at Kauffman Stadium at a baseball game.”
Kelly’s statewide order, issued March 28, supersedes orders in Johnson and Wyandotte counties, but if it’s allowed to expire, the counties’ orders still remain until at least April 24.
Spokeswoman Lori Sand said Johnson County officials are now waiting to hear whether Kelly will extend the statewide order before making a decision at the local level.
Lucas said he had spoken with Parson and mayors across Missouri and planned to speak with colleagues in Jackson, Johnson and Wyandotte counties. He said officials would likely reach a decision within days.
In March, after those three counties and the city announced their stay at home orders, Clay, Platte, Leavenworth and other neighboring counties soon followed suit.
Lucas said he thought the region was “doing a fine job” following the orders, with some exceptions. He called the fight between Kelly, a Democrat, and Republicans in the state Legislature over whether to allow churches to remain open “avoidable and unfortunate” and said he supports Kelly’s work.
The Star’s Sarah Ritter and Jason Hancock and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published April 13, 2020 at 10:43 AM.
