Kansas coronavirus case total rises to 55, new cases reported in Wyandotte County
Update: The headline and story has been updated to include the total number of cases the Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported Saturday and a note on numbers provided by local health departments.
At least 55 cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed in Kansas as of Saturday, according to the state’s department of health.
New cases have been reported in Johnson, Wyandotte and Douglas counties as well as the first in Mitchell and Reno Counties, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment website showed.
Wyandotte County’s total rose to 13 from nine Saturday.
Some local health departments continued to report new cases and it was not immediately clear how those figured into the state total that was updated Saturday morning.
Johnson County added an additional case, bringing the county total to 26, according to the Johnson County Health Department.
Douglas County health officials also announced two additional cases Saturday morning.
The two COVID-19 cases, Douglas County’s second and third, were both travel-related, according to a statement from the county health department.
They involve a woman in her 30s who recently traveled to the West Coast and a man in his 30s who traveled to England. Both patients are in isolation, the agency said.
Kansas also announced the state’s second death, the first in Johnson County, Saturday.
The first coronavirus case was reported in Kansas on March 7.
The state’s top health official, Lee Norman, said Friday that Kansas is running “precariously low” on test kits and could run out as early as this weekend.
At that point, Kansas Department of Health and Environment officials said, they will send samples to commercial testing labs. The state is working with hospitals to help them start conducting their own tests.
Testing has already been reduced in Johnson County, where the state has encountered its highest number of cases. County health officials are advising tests only for those hospitalized with symptoms because the county reached community transmission level. Community transmission means there are new cases that can’t be attributed to travel or contact with others known to be infected.
Missouri had confirmed 73 cases by Friday night. Over 22,000 people have been infected with the virus in the U.S.
The Wichita Eagle’s Michael Stavola contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 21, 2020 at 11:17 AM with the headline "Kansas coronavirus case total rises to 55, new cases reported in Wyandotte County."
