KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Kansas health officials are about to let everyone know the locations of every coronavirus outbreak cluster in the state.
Back in April, nursing homes like Riverbend saw massive outbreaks. Health officials were quick to respond, letting everyone know about it.
But lately, whenever there’s been an outbreak, health officials have been quiet about it, declining to publish that information. Officials only let the public know of an outbreak if they couldn’t do contact tracing.
That’s about to change.
Starting next Wednesday, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment will release the name and location of every active outbreak in the state.
Here’s the criteria. They will only identify a pubic place is there are five or more active cases from the same location. Before identifying a private business, there must be at least 20 active cases.
Right now, Kansas is seeing a surge in COVID-19 clusters. At least 170 clusters were reported last week.
KU is the site of one of those clusters. Many college kids are now testing positive for the virus – two weeks after classes started.
But now, as they continue contact tracing, they will also make public every active outbreak – and the number of cases in each location – for all to see.
They will publish the new numbers every Wednesday on KDHE’s website. Just check their COVID-19 in Kansas Overview.
