Kansas Adds 177 Deaths In One Week; Health Officials Wary Of Thanksgiving Gatherings

From the Kansas Reflector:

By
Sherman Smith - November 25, 2020

TOPEKA — The Kansas Department for Health and Environment said Wednesday that 47 deaths from COVID-19 have been reported since Monday, pushing the pandemic’s death toll in the state above 1,500.

Health officials are worried the radical acceleration in deaths and infections across Kansas will be amplified further by Thanksgiving gatherings, exacerbating the strain on overworked health care workers and overflowing hospitals.

Gov. Laura Kelly urged residents to adhere to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and not travel for Thanksgiving or take extra precautions if they choose to risk family gatherings. The CDC advises that travelers get a flu shot, wear face coverings around people they don’t live with, stay six feet apart, wash hands often, and avoiding touching their face.

People should bring their own food and drinks, plates, cups, utensils and disposable food containers.

“I understand how discouraging and frustrating it is to not get together with family members over special holidays like Thanksgiving,” Kelly said. “I know we all want this to be over. We all want to turn to some semblance of normal. But we cannot return to any semblance of normal until this virus is under control, until we flatten the curve, until a vaccine is available, widely distributed, and vaccination rates are significant.

“Until then, I encourage Kansans to hunker down, have dinner together over Zoom call, share recipes with loved ones, shop online for good deals on Black Friday rather than shopping in person.”

Kelly’s new statewide order requiring people to wear a mask in public went into effect Wednesday, but many of the state’s counties again opted out. The state’s online dashboard for mask restrictions shows 22 counties allowed her order to stand, 36 adopted their own rules, and 47 have no mask order in place.

Kansas has recorded 177 deaths from the virus in the past week, for a total of 1,503 since the first death in early March. More than 147,000 Kansans have been infected with COVID-19.

Shawnee County health officer Gianfranco Pezzino said there is no safe size of gathering, and the only safe place is your own home.

“I do feel sad and discouraged,” Pezzino said. “I also would rather spend my holidays just with my wife this year and be able to spend my holidays with my extended family next year than have an extended family gathering this year and then not being able to have somebody to table next year because they may have passed away.

“I don’t want to sound catastrophic, but that’s really what’s happening these days in our community. So I urge everybody to please think about their plans. Do not get together for Thanksgiving holiday, or other any occasion with people outside of your household.”

There is a light at the end of the long, dark tunnel, he said — a vaccine should be distributed in Kansas, in limited quantities at first, by mid-December. KDHE confirmed that was a possibility.

KDHE secretary Lee Norman said the agency has deployed new software to help coordinate the movement of COVID-19 patients among hospitals. The agency signed a contract for the software, which he is referring to as Mission Control, on Nov. 18. It is already being used in 30 facilities, Norman said, and the agency is adding more each day with the goal of bringing every hospital in the state onboard.

The system monitors patient needs and the location of available beds and care.

“This platform will provide the critical function of helping determine which hospitals have capacity for patients — COVID-19 and otherwise — with real-time data,” Norman said. “It will allow patients to be transferred to an open ICU bed and relieve some of the strain on the state’s health care system.”

The Kansas Reflector seeks to increase people's awareness of how decisions made by elected representatives and other public servants affect our day-to-day lives. We hope to empower and inspire greater participation in democracy throughout Kansas.