Sedgwick County’s new coronavirus plan: advice but no rules, everything can open
A day after Gov. Laura Kelly shifted responsibility for coronavirus prevention to the counties, Sedgwick County shifted it to the business community and individual residents.
The county commissioners opted Wednesday not to place any rules or restrictions on business or personal activity to control the spread of COVID-19.
“I think it’s time to trust our citizens,” said Commissioner Jim Howell.
The commission voted to recommend that residents continue to follow nonbinding recommendations for social distancing.
As of Wednesday, the disease had killed 21 county residents out of the 564 who have tested positive for the coronavirus. Nationwide, about 1.6 million have tested positive and about 100,000 have died.
Now, all Wichita-area businesses, including bars, night clubs and entertainment venues which had been closed can reopen to their full capacity. The commission also voted not to restrict pools, in-person commencement and graduation ceremonies, fairs and children’s summer camps.
Commissioners turned aside a recommendation by the county health officer, Dr. Garold Minns, to continue the closure of nightclubs and bars that don’t meet restaurant requirements of the city of Wichita.
In a restaurant setting, people go usually in groups of family or friends to eat. Interaction between groups is generally minimal, Minns said.
In contrast, people are much more likely to stay and mingle with strangers at a night club, he said.
“Some have told me at a bar, we purposely go there to avoid social distancing,” he said.
Minns also recommended that the county continue to limit mass public gatherings to 20 people or less. He recommended that those gatherings be of people who know each other so that contacts can be traced if someone does spread the infection.
He emphasized the need to maintain social distancing and said he was disturbed by scenes of massive parties that took place over Memorial Day weekend, including a gathering of hundreds of closely packed people at Lake of the Ozarks, Mo.
Commissioner Lacey Cruse was the only member to advocate for a more active approach. She recommended that the commission follow Minns’ advice, but her motion died for lack of a second.
Without naming his name, Cruse called out Howell, the commission’s most outspoken advocate for a full and fast reopening, for failure to socially distance at a Memorial Day event.
“Commissioners talk about personal responsibility, but at the same time attend weekend events without masks, shaking hands with World War II vets,” Cruse said. “If we don’t follow the rules that we set, how can we expect the public to follow those rules that we set for ourselves?”
The complaint stemmed from a Derby woman’s e-mail sent to all the commissioners and The Eagle questioning Howell’s actions.
Howell said he attended two cemetery events on Memorial Day, but the hand-shaking was initiated by fellow veterans who wanted to shake hands with him.
“These veterans, they love freedom,” he said. “They’re very friendly. Many of them stick out their hands and want to shake your hand . . . That environment, that particular crowd, they want to have camaraderie.”
Under the circumstances, Howell said “I made a snap decision to shake hands and be friendly and I washed my hands when I was done.
“There’s no law that says you can’t shake hands, there’s no law that says you have to wear a mask.”
Restaurants, hair salons and most other businesses had already been allowed to reopen, with restrictions designed to avoid mass gatherings and close-contact activities that are known to spread the virus.
Wednesday’s action doesn’t continue those restrictions, meaning any social-distancing measures are now optional.
The commission decision followed about two months of emergency restrictions imposed first by the county and then Gov. Laura Kelly that shuttered thousands of businesses statewide and put a major crimp in the state’s economy .
On Tuesday, under pressure from the Republican-dominated Legislature, Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that would have restricted her authority to issue public-health orders.
She called lawmakers into special session beginning June 3 to redo the legislation which she blasted as the “partisan, self-serving and short-sighted” result of a 23-hour, 55-minute overnight marathon session last week.
But at the same time, she abandoned her plans for a slow and measured reopening of the economy, punting all health decisions to county health officers.
The County Commission had chafed under the governor’s orders for nearly a month. On May 1, the commission voted to end what commissioners called a “snitch line,” an online portal that their staff had set up for residents to report violations of health orders.
After the first round of public health emergency orders from the state, Sedgwick County sent letters to 94 businesses that were not complying in early April, records show.
Those businesses were reported through the county reporting line and received notices from the Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department that they were operating in violation of the governor’s executive orders.
No one was arrested or cited for violating the orders.
The county will continue to publish on its website recommended health guidelines that businesses and individuals can follow if they so choose.
Sedgwick commissioners followed the lead of Johnson County, the state’s most populous, which issued a statement Wednesday morning saying that its health officers had also decided enforceable rules are not necessary.
“Now that we are a few weeks past the end of the stay-at-home order and the beginning of reopening our economy, we are seeing an increase of positive cases, just as we anticipated,” said Johnson County Department of Health and Environment Director Dr. Sanmi Areola. “We will continue to investigate outbreaks, increase testing and ramp up contact tracing and investigations. We will also continue to work with Long Term Care Facilities to mitigate the spread among our most vulnerable population.”
Contributing: Chance Swaim of The Eagle
This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 3:36 PM.
