Commissioners waffle on mask mandate despite pleas from health officer, COVID case spike

Sedgwick County’s health officer pleaded with county commissioners to restore a mask mandate amid a sharp rise in COVID cases, but the commission upheld no restrictions to fight the spread of the delta variant coronavirus.

Dr. Garold Minns issued a devastating report to county commissioners Wednesday, saying the COVID-19 delta variant has made a “quantum leap” since July, with new infections reaching the highest levels since last winter, when the 2020 pandemic reached its peak.

But for the second time in less than three weeks, Sedgwick County commissioners filed his report without passing a mask mandate, which Minns said is the least intrusive action government can take to slow the spread of the virus, given the low vaccination rates in the Wichita area.

“As you know, I think it is time to seriously consider re-instituting a mask mandate,” Minns told commissioners. “I think it is the least impactful upon employment, the least impactful on people being out of work, and it is the least (impactful) measure that really inhibits people’s activities.”

Minns said he doesn’t think the county should institute business closures or gathering limits at this time.

“I don’t have a set number in my head about when we would move to the restrictions we had in 2020,” he said. “I would be very reluctant to do that and, frankly, you, the commissioners, would have to decide whether you can accept that.”

Minns wasn’t scheduled to speak this week, but Commissioner Lacey Cruse brought him in as an off-agenda item.

“When I see our school system and when I hear my daughter telling me about all of her friends that are out sick, when I see reports of physicians exhausted beyond belief and all of our hospital system maxed out, what do we do?” Cruse said.

Cruse urged her colleagues to resist political pressure from the vocal and highly organized anti-mask forces who have bombarded the commission with messages.

“I have received tons of emails talking about freedoms and liberties and all of that,” she said. “I just want to make sure that we understand that we all have a responsibility in this and it is important that we talk about it and that we be real with the very real situation.”

Commissioner David Dennis criticized Minns’ proposal, saying the county shouldn’t do a mask mandate if it’s not willing to enforce it directly with police powers.

Minns replied that when the mask mandate was in place, it succeeded because grocery stores and big-box businesses used it to deny entry to mask-less patrons.

Dennis said he thinks that puts too much pressure on the businesses.

“They’re putting their employees in a heck of a place trying to enforce something with people that disagree with them so I think that would cause more problems,” he said.

Commissioner Sarah Lopez, who supports a mask mandate, has started a weekly call-in for school superintendents to discuss COVID in the classroom.

“I can tell you it’s a big difference in the conversations we had before school started and the conversations we had last Thursday,” Lopez said. “They are beyond frustrated. They are exhausted and school just started.

“Last week when we had our superintendent call there was about 4,000 kids in Sedgwick County on quarantine of some sort. That’s a lot of kids. That’s a lot of parents (missing work) especially if they’re young kids who can’t be home by themselves.”

She said the school officials are calling for action.

“They are begging us to do something,” she said. “They were saying it’s like a wildfire. It’s lit, it’s started and they don’t know what to do to slow it down, and I hear repeatedly that they’re asking the board of health [the county commission] to do our jobs. I don’t know how to say that nicer.”

She also had harsh words for the state Legislature, which has basically outlawed online schooling as a pandemic response, instead mandating that children go back to attending in person.

She said that’s affected her daughter, who has an autoimmune condition and is at high-risk for serious illness if she gets COVID.

Lopez said her daughter had to quarantine after being exposed at school and missed seven days of gym class. That’s affected her physical education grade and could push her out of the National Junior Honor Society.

“It is frustrating because the state has taken away any of our ability for our kids to remote learn,” she said. “There are so many things that are so frustrating and our hands are tied in so many ways and a lot of that is at the state level. I hate that that’s the case, but that’s the case.”

Sedgwick County, COVID hotspot

Sedgwick County is Kansas’ primary hotspot for COVID-19, according to Kansas Department of Health and Environment data.

On Tuesday, it reported 214 new cases, more than double the next highest county of Shawnee, and about two and a half times more than Johnson, the state’s most populous county.

Since Aug. 20, when the county commission shunned Minns’ mask order, Sedgwick County has averaged 279 new cases a day — by far the most in the state, outpacing Johnson County by more than 80 cases a day.

“We’ve had a quantum leap in the number of cases, and we’re at a level we haven’t seen for almost a year,” Minns said.

For the past five to six weeks, around 8% of everyone tested for the coronavirus has been a carrier of the disease, Minns said. More than 200 people are in the hospital, with many in the ICU and some on ventilators.

“We are also seeing more kids in the hospital, certainly not at the numbers we’re seeing adults. And of the adults, we’re seeing people from younger age groups than we did the first nine months of this illness in our city,” Minns said.

Sedgwick also ranks dead last in vaccination rates of the five most populous counties in Kansas, according to the latest KDHE vaccine numbers.

With 49% of people over age 12 vaccinated, Sedgwick County trails Johnson (61%), Douglas (58%), Shawnee (58%) and Wyandotte (50%) counties.

Minns said over 90% of ICU patients in Wichita hospitals are unvaccinated.

Sedgwick County has 862 documented COVID-19 deaths, according to KDHE.

Death records are not considered an open record under Kansas law, and a lag in reporting makes it nearly impossible to have a timely or complete account of the number of deaths in the Wichita area caused by COVID-19.

Commissioner Dennis, who voted against a mask mandate last month, reiterated Wednesday that the county should focus on vaccinations, not public health orders.

“We’ve had that discussion before,” Minns said. “If we could get the vaccination numbers up higher, I think that would be the optimal solution to this problem. The vaccine does seem to be effective against the delta virus, but our vaccination numbers are not moving very much.”

This story was originally published September 8, 2021 at 1:49 PM.