COVID restrictions might be ramped up if people don’t behave better, county says
Weddings, bars and church services are apparently big contributors to the recent spike in Sedgwick County’s rising rates of COVID-19, the county’s top health officials reported Thursday.
The bad news on COVID could lead to more restrictions on gatherings, but whether the county will order that was left an open question at a special meeting Thursday.
The county’s health officer, Dr. Garold Minns, might issue a new order strengthening the existing mask mandate and business restrictions, possibly within the next day or two, County Manager Tom Stolz said.
Minns said he doesn’t favor another general stay-home order like last spring, but he indicated he will recommend targeted changes to address event planners and other businesses that aren’t acting responsibly.
“I think there’s generally pretty good compliance with the mask order, but it’s not consistent,” Minns said. “I have reports from friends of mine and individuals . . . that have attended weddings where no one was wearing a mask at the wedding reception.”
At a special meeting with Minns, Sedgwick County Health Department Director Adrienne Byrne and the medical chiefs of the county’s two major hospital systems, the one common theme to emerge was that the people of Sedgwick County are not doing enough to protect themselves and others from the coronavirus.
On Thursday the county reported more than 13,000 current cases and rising. The positive test rate, a key measure of community spread, has risen from under 5% in mid-September to 19%.
Hospitals are seeing unprecedented numbers of COVID patients and are beginning to implement “surge plans” to create more space for the sick.
In the past three weeks to a month, COVID-19 hospitalizations have tripled in the Ascension Via Christi system, the Wichita area’s largest health-care network, said Dr. Sam Antonios, medical director.
His counterpart in the Wesley health system, Dr. Lowell Ebersole, said hospitalizations have doubled there.
Minns and Byrne said said they’re not certain what’s driving the spike, but offered several likely culprits:
▪ Schools — Overall, Minns was complimentary about the precautions schools have taken within their buildings, but less so about the handling of extracurricular activities including participants in school sports and their spectators.
▪ Religious gatherings, including weddings — Minns suggested that the county needs to do something to encourage more compliance with social distancing and mask requirements.
▪ Bars — Byrne said many local bars continue to violate the county’s health orders requiring limits on occupancy. She said if people go into a bar or restaurant and the place is packed, they should walk out and go somewhere else, preferably take-out.
▪ Other businesses — Minns said while many businesses are barring people who don’t wear face coverings, at others, there’s “no intervention, people walk in and out with nothing said.”
The county has not, so far, enforced its public health order, which would require the county instituting civil penalties in court and businesses assuming liability for outbreaks at their facilities. Instead, the county has relied on a more voluntary, educational and marketing approach to gain compliance.
The city of Wichita had a mask requirement that allowed the city to issue tickets for violations until late last month when it was allowed to expire by the City Council. The mask ordinance was in place for months but was only enforced only after bars and nightclubs began openly violating the city’s mask ordinance along with the county’s curfew and gathering limits.
Mayor Brandon Whipple has been pushing for the city to authorize its police and fire personnel to help enforce and educate businesses about the county’s health order. It would allow the city to report noncompliance to the county. But a majority of the City Council has declined to enter the COVID response business, saying the county should be in charge of enforcing its order.
The County Commission, which is also the Board of Health, has mostly left the COVID-19 restrictions to Minns, who said the county Health Department lacks the staff to adequately enforce the public health order, especially at sporting events and other large gatherings.
“We need to engage the people who plan events in this community,” Minns said. “Whether it’s at the Intrust Bank arena or in other places where we have sporting events, they need to take a large responsibility for enforcing compliance. We do not have the staff at the Health Department to do that.”
Contributing: Chance Swaim of The Wichita Eagle
This story was originally published November 5, 2020 at 3:30 PM.
