Did Johnson County officials react too slowly to the coronavirus test shortage?
Could Johnson County officials have acted more quickly and assertively to test residents for coronavirus?
That was the biggest bone of contention at an emergency teleconference meeting of county commissioners Monday afternoon, at which they unanimously approved spending $400,000 for up to 5,000 random tests of the county’s population to track the spread of COVID-19.
Some in the county, most prominently District 6 Commissioner Mike Brown, have become understandably agitated by the lack of tests since the Kansas Department of Health and Environment announced March 18 it would reduce testing in the county. The department’s decision to redirect precious test kits to other areas of the state came after the county’s onset of “community transmission” of the virus, meaning cases were originating here among residents who hadn’t been exposed by travel or contact with known patients.
In an exasperated Facebook post over the weekend, Brown attacked county and state officials for having “abandoned” Johnson County to the pandemic “as a lost cause.”
It certainly might have seemed that way. It did to District 3 Commissioner Steven C. Klika.
“I would probably concur with Commissioner Brown on this,” Klika told The Star, noting the impact the virus is having on the 600,000-strong county: 116 confirmed cases and two deaths as of Monday. “I think we were looking for some more aggressive support from the state.”
Yet, Dr. Sanmi Areola, director of the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment, had raves at Monday’s commission meeting for Dr. Lee Norman, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, calling Norman “exceedingly responsive.”
And in truth, once community transmission begins, the Centers for Disease Control recommends just such a shift in strategy — from containment of the virus to mitigation — in order to conserve limited resources. The state certainly can’t be faulted for following CDC guidance in the matter.
Yet, like most around the nation, Johnson Countians have been champing at the bit for more testing — the paucity of which must be laid squarely at the federal doorstep. There’s not much a county manager in Kansas can do about that.
Brown also thinks county officials could have moved more rapidly to procure tests after the commission agreed on that goal last week. Indeed, between that decision and 2 p.m. Sunday, the county learned its preferred vendor didn’t have enough of the tests to fulfill the county’s request.
Might it have been able to earlier? Perhaps, but not necessarily. It’s more likely that, rather than negligence, Johnson County staff have simply been engaged in the same frantic Easter-egg hunt for coronavirus tests that every state and many locales have set out on.
“I don’t know of any other county in the Midwest that’s stepping up and doing what Johnson County’s doing,” District 2 Commissioner James P. Allen told The Star earlier Monday — adding, rightly enough, “I don’t know, if we would’ve done this 10 days ago, that those tests would even be available.”
As it is, the new random testing, to be rolled out in the next week or so, will have almost nothing to do with treating the disease and everything to do with tracking it. ETC Institute, an Olathe-based market research company helping the county out at no charge, will be selecting residents for testing. The first sample size will be up to 1,500 residents, with subsequent random samplings to compare that to.
“What we’re trying to do is collect more data that would give us a broader understanding as to what we might do in the future to continue to mitigate the spread of the virus,” says Commission Chairman Ed Eilert, “or whether the results are showing that the curve is going down.”
In short, this will make future decisions on closures and stay-at-home orders more data-driven.
Eilert told his fellow commissioners of an effort by some Kansas City business executives to bring an additional 50,000 tests to the metro area, which may provide more testing still in Johnson County.
While District 1 Commissioner Becky Fast notes that, “When you’re talking about saving lives, you are never doing enough,” she says the county staff has been doing what it can in the midst of an unprecedented crisis.
“I feel like our staff from day one has been working really hard and proactively. We’ve been ahead of the other counties in this state,” Fast said.
If Johnson Countians feel they’re behind the curve on testing, they’re in good and crowded company. The whole of the nation is right there with them.