Rural Kansans, students and seniors must ‘do their part to slow’ COVID, White House says
Certain Kansans need to “do their part” during the coronavirus pandemic, the White House COVID-19 task force recommends, adding that mask requirements should stay in place a week after Wichita’s law expired.
Rural communities, senior citizens and college students should be targeted with “specific mitigation messaging ... to engage them to do their part to slow the spread,” the White House said in a report on the pandemic in Kansas.
The White House report, dated Sunday and obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, encourages mask mandates in Kansas.
“Need a different strategy for reducing transmission in cooler weather and considering COVID fatigue. Keep mask requirements in place,” the White House report states. “Ensure physical distancing, hand hygiene, avoiding crowds in public and social gatherings in private, and flu immunizations.”
Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, has asked Republican legislators to consider a special session to approve mask legislation. She said the GOP lawmakers asked that they try urging voluntary mask use and local requirements first.
A member of the White House COVID-19 task force has previously rejected mask mandates.
“There’s never been a mandate nationally, as you know, and never will be,” Dr. John Fleming told The Eagle earlier this month. “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.”
Kelly issued a statewide mask mandate before the Fourth of July holiday, but the vast majority of counties rejected it under a state law passed in June that allowed for greater local control over health policy. Since then, rural Kansas and the state as a whole have experienced an explosion in cases.
“If we are unable to convince communities to voluntarily implement a mask mandate, I will move expeditiously to find another way to implement,” Kelly said Wednesday.
In Wichita, the City Council allowed its mask law to expire last week without discussing an extension. Mayor Brandon Whipple suggested there were not enough votes to extend the ordinance, despite coronavirus pandemic indicators worsening in the state’s largest city.
Sedgwick County still has a mask order from its public health officer, though there appears to have been little to no enforcement of that mandate. Unlike the tickets that could be issued by police under the city’s law, the county’s order requires the filing of a civil lawsuit to obtain an injunction or financial penalties.
While mask requirements generally only apply to public settings, home gatherings with families and friends have become a significant source of spreading the virus.
“Work with communities to limit large and small social gatherings; current transmissions are linked to home gatherings,” the White House report says of Kansas. “People must remember that seemingly uninfected family members and friends may be infected but asymptomatic. When meeting people who are not part of one’s household, masking and physical distancing must be observed at all times, especially when indoors.”
Ranked as the 19th-worst, Kansas is one of 32 states in the red zone of the White House’s weekly measure for new cases per 100,000 people. Kansas is also in the red zone for the weekly positive test rate rate, ranking ninth-worst in the country. The Sunflower State is again in the red zone for the weekly death rate per population, ranking fifth-worst.
The red zone thresholds are set at above 100 new cases per 100,000 people, above 10% positive tests and above two new deaths per 100,000 people.
Kansas was nearly double the case threshold. The 5,710 new cases last week amount to 196 new cases per 100,000 people. The nationwide average was 133.
The positive test rate was 11%, which was up 1.8 percentage points. The nationwide rate was 5.8%.
The 116 deaths in Kansas amount to a weekly rate of four new deaths per 100,000 people, which is twice the red zone threshold. The nationwide rate is 1.7, due to 5,484 deaths in one week.
Kelly on Wednesday ordered flags be flown at half-staff after the state passed 1,000 deaths attributed to the coronavirus disease.
Even as major hospital systems in Wichita approach capacity for COVID-19 patients — the local health department listed the hospital status as “critical” for the first time on Wednesday — the White House warns that hospital admissions may be under-counted in Kansas.
“Underreporting may lead to a lower allocation of critical supplies,” the report states.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported 106 new hospitalizations on Wednesday. The two-day increased appeared to be the most ever reported by the KDHE.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions in Kansas is more than double what it was a month ago.
On Sept. 27, the White House reported 31 confirmed COVID-19 patients and 49 suspected COVID-19 patients were hospitalized each day, on average, over the previous week. Sunday’s report listed averages of 71 confirmed COVID-19 patients and 60 suspected COVID-19 patients hospitalized each day over the past week.
The report also found that nearly a third of long-term care facilities in the state had a staff member test positive last week. It lists that 30% of Kansas nursing homes had at least one new staff case, 12% had at least one new resident case and 5% had at least one new resident death.
White House graphs for the rate of new cases over time show Johnson, Wyandotte and Shawnee counties have relatively stable rates of new cases per day. Douglas County has a declining rate. Sedgwick, Reno and Finney counties are shown to have increasing rates.
In the Wichita area, Sedgwick, Reno, Butler, Harvey Sumner and Kingman counties are all considered in the red zone due to high rates of new cases. Cowley County is in the yellow zone.
Case rates improved in the past week in Butler, Cowley and Harvey counties. Rates worsened in Sedgwick, Reno, Sumner and Kingman counties.