Kansas’ top health doctor warns reopening could lead to ‘startling increase’ in cases

As counties across Kansas reopened Wednesday, the state’s top doctor said he’s worried that a second wave of coronavirus infections could undo months of progress.

Kansas Secretary of Health and Environment Dr. Lee Norman warned Wednesday that if mass gatherings are allowed without social distancing, “we’re going to see an increase and perhaps a startling increase in the number of cases.”

Statewide orders limiting gathering sizes and reopening businesses in phases were lifted Wednesday after Gov. Laura Kelly Kelly announced Tuesday that she would allow her most recent emergency declaration to expire. That lifted practically all coronavirus-control restrictions in the state and placed the onus for disease prevention on individual counties.

Norman suggested that allowing large groups to gather en masse and high-risk, high-contact businesses to reopen could show how effective the governor’s emergency orders were in slowing the spread of the virus and called the county-led swift reopening an experiment.

“I don’t like experimenting with people,” Norman said. “And I consider this next period of time to be an experiment in disease spread and how it takes further root in our citizenry.”

Kelly’s statewide restrictions offered a level of consistency that’s now gone and the state isn’t tracking what restrictions, if any, its 105 counties choose to adopt on their own.

“We do not have a registry that says here’s where every one of the 105 counties is as it relates to their own reopening plan,” Norman said.

Kansas’ most populous counties, Johnson and Sedgwick, have chosen to lift practically all COVID-19 restrictions, allowing mass gatherings and high-risk activities to resume. Both counties have emphasized that guidelines for phased reopening are completely unenforceable.

The state’s largest outbreaks have been in urban areas, prisons, nursing homes and meat packing plants. A majority of Kansas counties, especially rural areas, have few or no cases of COVID-19.

Norman said it’s appropriate for some counties with the fewest cases to have more latitude when easing restrictions but that counties with the most cases should be more cautious.

“I predict some counties in Kansas will fare well, and some will fare very poorly,” he said.

Also Wednesday, the Kansas coronavirus death toll topped 200, as 17 more deaths were reported by Norman, bringing the state’s total to 205.

Just over half of those deaths — 107 — have been at 30 infection clusters associated with long-term-care facilities, Norman said.

He said so far Kansas has done a good job flattening the infection rate growth curve. But now public health restrictions have been lifted, all bets are off.

“In the next several weeks, we are entering uncharted, experimental waters,” Norman said. “It will show us how the reopening efforts have impacted disease spread.”

This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 4:18 PM.