Coronavirus patient at Wichita hospital sent home
Update Saturday:
The 72-year-old Butler County man has been released from the hospital to self-quarantine at home.
“We send people home if they are not showing severe symptoms,” Wesley Medical Center spokesperson Dave Stewart said, adding that self-quarantine at home is the front-line defense for stopping the spread of the virus.
Original Friday:
A 72-year-old man is in isolation at Wichita’s Wesley Medical Center after testing positive for coronavirus, the first case in Kansas’ largest city.
He is a resident of neighboring Butler County and recently traveled outside of the United States on a cruise ship in the western Caribbean, according to Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Lee Norman.
The man “came back to the state of Kansas and was not symptomatic on the trip back, not symptomatic for the first few days,” Norman said.
How many people he was in close contact with before he was tested is unclear.
The announcement came on the heels of Kansas’ first COVID-19 death and cancellations throughout the Wichita area.
Limited testing and delays in testing make an accurate count of infected Americans nearly impossible. As of Thursday afternoon, more than 1,500 people in 45 states and Washington, D.C., had tested positive for coronavirus.
The Butler County man is the sixth case in Kansas and the first in the southern half of the state. Gov. Laura Kelly announced the state’s first deadly case Thursday night. A man in his 70s who lived in a long-term care facility died in Wyandotte County. His case had not been identified until after his death.
Sedgwick County officials at a news conference Friday morning avoided mentioning the case at Wesley. It was acknowledged only after reporters asked about it. Because the man is not a resident of Sedgwick County, the health department is deferring to his home county to notify the public, Sedgwick County Health Director Adrienne Byrne said.
Although the patient is being held in Sedgwick County, the county is not counting him as a Sedgwick County case of coronavirus at this time, which allows the county to test under narrower guidelines.
“It’s important to remember that since COVID-19 is not in our community yet, and is not community spread, that the criteria for who is to be tested has not changed,” Byrne said.
Despite the pandemic spreading throughout the United States, Sedgwick County is limiting testing to people who are displaying symptoms of the illness and have either recently traveled overseas or have come in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.
The county is asking anyone who has traveled overseas, whether they display symptoms or not, to self-report to the Sedgwick County Health Department to determine if they should self-quarantine for 14 days after returning.
Agencies are waiting for the Center for Disease Control to confirm, according to the KDHE statement.
This is a developing story and will be updated as information becomes available.
Contributing: Michael Stavola of The Eagle.
This story was originally published March 13, 2020 at 10:22 AM with the headline "Coronavirus patient at Wichita hospital sent home."