Coronavirus not here yet, but coming; Sedgwick County gears up, official tells Wichita council
In the first of what will be weekly local updates on the coronavirus, Sedgwick County Health Director Adrienne Byrne told the Wichita City Council that the risk for the virus is currently low, but it is almost certain to come to Kansas sooner or later.
The coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, “is not in our community, it’s not in the state of Kansas, but it is coming and so we are going to be prepared for that when it does come,” she said Tuesday.
Sedgwick County has activated its “internal incident command system,” to gather information on the progress of the virus and distribute it to the health-care community and the general public.
“What the ICS structure does is create a very specific structure for communications, because there are a lot of moving pieces in any type of outbreak,” she said. “So we have over 20 of our staff dedicated to various aspects.
“We’re in constant contact with our state health department, as well as the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We are also in contact with our community partners, our medical and health partners. We’re having an expanded meeting this week with our safety partners, public safety partners and medical, just to make sure that we’re on the same page.”
She likened the current response to the H1N1 flu outbreak in 2009 and measles in 2014 and 2017.
Fact sheets and updates are being posted on the homepage of the county website, www.sedgwickcounty.org.
“We are really acting as the main point of information for the community,” Byrne said.
The county is also working with United Way to make information available through its 211 phone line, she said.
One caveat, don’t expect to find the latest numbers on the spread of the virus at the county website.
“We stopped updating as numbers changed because numbers could change several times throughout the day, or (by the) minute at this point,” she said.
With no vaccine for the coronavirus, prevention is mostly a matter of common sense and hygiene at this point, she said.
The common path for the virus to enter the body is via a person getting it on their hands and touching their face, she said.
Regular hand-washing is the best defense, especially thorough washing that includes cleaning under the fingernails. Hand sanitizer can do in a pinch, but isn’t as effective, she said.
Face masks are effective on already sick people to keep them from spreading the disease to others, but it’s not very effective in protecting a healthy individual so Byrne advised only using a mask if directed by a doctor.
She also strongly advised staying home when you’re sick.
Although the virus outbreak began in China, there is practically no threat of catching the disease from packages shipped from there, she said.
This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 12:07 PM.
