Is Kansas ‘doing very well’ or ‘losing the battle’ on COVID? White House, KDHE disagree
Kansas is “doing very well overall” in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, a White House task force member said the same day the state’s top public health official warned that Kansas is “losing the battle” against COVID-19.
The White House deputy chief of staff, Dr. John Fleming, rejected mask mandates in an interview with The Eagle on Friday while advocating for the reopening of schools with fall sports.
But Dr. Lee Norman, the secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, told the Associated Press on Friday the state is “losing the battle,” blaming a record-breaking increase in cases on residents’ refusal to consistently follow public health guidelines for mask-wearing, social distancing and avoiding large public gatherings.
The spike comes as rural areas of the state experience increased spread of the coronavirus. Last week’s case rate map from the KDHE showed 75 of 105 counties were in the red zone while only three were in the green zone.
The four worst counties were in rural western Kansas.
“You have to understand that the pandemic and the way it spread has gone from the metropolitan areas, which you would expect, and it’s moved over time to the South and now it’s more in the Midwest,” Fleming said. “So the more rural areas and the more rural states are beginning to get the peaks in infection rates that months ago occurred in other states. I think it’s just taken a span of time for higher levels of infectivity to get to the rural areas. But still Kansas is doing very well overall. You’re still in yellow zone when it comes to test positivity.”
The latest report from the White House, dated Oct. 4 and obtained by The Center for Public Integrity, shows Kansas in the yellow zone for the positive test rate and the red zone for the rate of new cases compared to population. The test positivity rate was a “slight decrease” over the previous week, but still ranks 13th-highest in the country. The rate of new cases was the 12th-highest.
The AP reported that Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican, decried Norman’s assessment and accused Democrats of “pandering for votes.”
“Frankly, I am getting tired of the constant fear-mongering,” she said in a text to the wire service.
“It’s not ‘fear-mongering’ when talking about the 3rd leading cause of death in the US (after heart disease and cancer) and the 4th largest mass fatality event in US history (following 1918 pandemic, the Civil War, and WWII). And in just 7 months,” Norman responded on Twitter.
Distributing tests
Gov. Laura Kelly praised the White House last week for its plans to distribute 870,000 rapid tests to Kansas. That’s more tests than the number of people tested so far in the state. Kansas has had 65,807 cases and 494,382 negative tests as of Friday.
Fleming said the new tests are relatively inexpensive while still being “quite accurate.”
“The BinaxNOW is really, I think, a tremendous technological breakthrough because you can do those at schools, you can do them at workplaces,” he said. “It just makes it so simple and you don’t have to have a lot of devices, you don’t have to buy expensive equipment.”
The governor plans to prioritize test distribution for schools, nursing homes and correctional facilities.
“We’re doing very well,” Fleming said of testing in the United States. “I think last I heard we were something close to 110 million tests that have been performed in this country. That’s really a third of the population. So testing is no longer a problem.”
Fleming said there has been progress on treatments and vaccines.
“Because of the therapeutics that we now have, better techniques, we are seeing the death rates, the case fatality rates and the hospitalization rates go way, way down, even relative to the number of people who have infections,” Fleming said. “And also, as you know, we’re working on vaccines. We have four in final testing, and we’re producing them even though they’re not yet approved, but they won’t be released until they are approved. And we expect at least one of them before the end of the year, so things are going extremely well with therapeutics and vaccines.”
Masks and mandates
The White House report for Kansas reiterated the importance and effectiveness of masks, especially in rural communities.
“Work with rural communities to message how masks work and protect individuals from COVID-19,” the report states. It adds that “masks must be worn indoors in all public settings.”
Fleming recommended that Kansans follow the guidance from the CDC, especially the “three Ws” of washing hands, wearing masks and watching your distance. But he rejected mask mandates, as well as the notion that President Donald Trump’s White House has lax policies on the CDC’s guidance.
“There’s never been a mandate nationally, as you know, and never will be,” Fleming said. “But what we find is generally adults are very, very responsible as long as you give them clear recommendations and guidance. They comply with those well, and they’re very effective.
“And in regards to the White House, we observe these recommendations, but again it’s a highly contagious infection, so whether you’re in the White House or in the bureaus or you’re in the workplace or schools, there are always going to be occasions where there’s an outbreak or two.”
While Fleming said he doesn’t think masks need to be mandated, Kansas officials have said data shows mandates are effective.
In Wichita and Sedgwick County, many pandemic indicators saw significant improvement after masks were required by a city law and a county order. The county’s health officer, Dr. Garold Minns, said much of the improvement was due to the mask mandates.
“I firmly believe that one main reason for the trends moving in the right direction is citizen compliance and wearing masks,” Minns said when extending the local order to Oct. 21.
Opening schools
Asked at what point Kansas schools should close to in-person classes and stop sports, Fleming did not cite any specific criteria. He referred to school guidance on the CDC’s website.
“In general, we think it’s OK to open up for in-person school,” Fleming said. “However, you would want to take mitigating steps depending on the number of students you have, the space you have, how you can properly distance them. Some schools have come up with some very creative ways of protecting students from each other in terms of spread.”
“In general, we recommend schools should be open, as long as they can observe the necessary guidance. And also we encourage the athletic programs. But again, like the colleges, taking due care to test for potential cases, make sure that if there is an outbreak on a team that that’s dealt with, it’s mitigated and there’s proper quarantine put into place.”
Several Kansas high schools have canceled or postponed football games because of team quarantines.
Wichita Public Schools has kept all middle and high school students at home, where they are taking classes online. Parents of elementary school students have the choice of sending their children to in-person classes. Fall sports have continued, and the school board decided last week to allow limited in-person attendance at sporting events.
The district had 13 students and 23 staff members test positive for COVID-19 last week. There were 280 employees under quarantine as of Friday.
The state’s largest school district was home to nearly 50,000 students last year. Enrollment dropped by 2,621 students this year, or about 5.3%. Preschool and kindergarten, which aren’t required by Kansas law, took the biggest hits.
In neighboring Derby, state public health officials have declared the high school football team and the high school itself as clusters of COVID-19.
“If someone is exposed, they should be quarantined for 14 days,” Fleming said. “If someone actually becomes infected, then from the point of infection they should be quarantined for at least 10 days, and even then be basically symptom and fever free.”
Contributing: The Associated Press
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 4:21 PM.