Old suspected cases are now being added to official tally

By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

Although Kansas Department of Health and Environment now lists seven COVID-19 cases in Marion County on their map, the number of confirmed cases here is still five.

The state health department is revising county numbers to add cases considered “probable” but no laboratory tests were conducted.

County health nurse Diedre Serene said the two additional probable cases are from April 4 and April 10.

“We have no active cases,” Serene said. “While they were considered probable they did not have a nasal swab to confirm it.”

The probable cases were treated as if they were confirmed cases and the two were asked to quarantine for 14 days, Serene said.

When a patient is tested, their medical providers recommend isolation until the test results come back.

The county has had 129 patients tested, with five tests positive.

“We do have some that are pending test results,” Serene said. “Two are showing up in the state’s testing system, but cases sent to a private lab will not show up on the state system until test results are available.”

The state now updates its statistics Monday, Wednesday and Friday instead of daily.

Serene said the health department still encourages people to wear masks in public, continue to wash hands frequently, and practice social distancing.

Those are recommendations she doesn’t expect to end in the near future.

“The governor will probably be announcing later this week whether the state will move to phase two or stay in phase one,” Serene said.

“I would still encourage people, as we open up the state, to refer to KDHE guidelines.

The more that is learned about the virus, the recommendations may change.”

County emergency manager Randy Frank said the county has produced posters featuring Uncle Sam and Rosie the Riveter.

He also made a video that features El Dorado resident Virginia Ball, “one of the original Rosie the Riveters from World War II.” The video is to encourage people to wear masks and continue social distancing.

The video is not posted on the county website. It can be viewed on El Dorado resident Deanna Bonn’s blog.

Frank is also working on a Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement program from FEMA that will reimburse the county 75% of emergency operations costs, emergency care, emergency sheltering, overtime costs including law enforcement if they are involved in emergency responses, and consumable products such as masks, and hand sanitizer.