Wichita has new COVID-19 clusters: 2 nursing homes, Spirit, Starkey, KETCH, Heartspring
State public health officials have named more active coronavirus clusters in the Wichita area.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Wednesday updated its list of active outbreaks of COVID-19. It included 10 clusters in Sedgwick County, though there are likely more that were not named.
Out of the 10 active clusters on the list, seven were new additions.
Private businesses Spirit AeroSystems and Starkey Inc. in Wichita were named, as were the KETCH health care facility and the Heartspring School group living facility. In the past 14 days, Spirit had 10 cases, Starkey had 11, KETCH had five and Heartspring had five.
The KDHE report indicates this is at least the second cluster at Spirit since the start of the pandemic.
The KDHE also identified new outbreaks at two Wichita nursing homes that have had previous clusters that turned deadly. Chaucer Estates has had 22 cases since the start of a new cluster in December. Park West Plaza Retirement Community has had five cases in the past two weeks after a new outbreak started in November.
Chaucer Estates was previously identified in July as a cluster by the Sedgwick County Health Department. The previous cluster was closed after five cases and one death. The county in May named a cluster at Park West Plaza, which had 14 cases and three deaths by the time it closed
Neither of the new nursing home clusters have been publicly reported by the local health department.
The KDHE also listed ongoing outbreaks that have previously been reported. Medicalodges of Wichita has had 28 cases in the past 14 days and Regent Park Rehabilitation and Healthcare has had five.
In Mount Hope, the KDHE identified a new cluster with five cases at Mount Hope Nursing Center.
In Derby, Derby High School has been considered an active cluster for months, and it had eight cases in the past two weeks. It is the only school in Sedgwick County on the state’s cluster list, even though the local health department’s last report had 17 unidentified active school-related clusters. One of those 17 was new in the past week.
The county has not identified the other school-related clusters.
The county also reported a new cluster at a correctional facility, but that facility has not been publicly identified by either the county or the state health departments.
“The newly identified correctional facility cluster does not pose a risk to the general public,” county spokesperson Kate Flavin said in an email.
The county has previously identified jail and prison outbreaks.
Five more business clusters have been reported this month in Sedgwick County, according to the local health department, which does not typically identify business clusters.
Wednesday’s update from the health department also listed 14 more nursing home clusters than what were in Tuesday’s report. Additional information wasn’t immediately available. The county typically identifies outbreaks at long-term care facilities.
In the surrounding area, Butler County has an active cluster at El Dorado Correctional Facility, Kingman County has one at The Wheatlands Health Care Center in Kingman and Sumner County has one in Wellington at Botkin Care and Rehabilitation.
In Reno County, there are active outbreaks at Hutchinson Correctional Facility, Diversicare of Hutchinson, Good Samaritan Society-Hutchinson Village, Mennonite Friendship Communities in South Hutchinson and Sunshine Meadows Retirement Community in Buhler.
Statewide, there were 56 new clusters reported in the past week. Exactly half of them were at long-term care facilities. The number of active clusters dropped by 31. There are now 462 known active outbreaks in Kansas.
The KDHE on Wednesday reported 5,778 new cases of COVID-19, 85 more deaths, 145 new hospitalizations and 53 more ICU admissions since Monday. There have now been a total of 179,803 cases with 1,941 dead from the coronavirus disease.
The new deaths included patients from every age group for people 25 and older. The new hospitalizations included patients of all ages.
Sedgwick County had 867 new cases, 10 new hospitalizations and four more ICU admissions reported by the KDHE in the past two days.
The county health department did not have any new deaths in its Wednesday update, but its Tuesday report had 21 new deaths. There have now been 193 deaths from COVID-19 in the county, with approximately half of those being nursing home residents.
“The newly reported death information came after a routine data reconciliation with KDHE,” said Flavin, the county spokesperson. “Most of the deaths occurred in November.”
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 1:45 PM.