Friday morning, Barton County reported two additional cases for a total of 14 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19. Both cases are from the city of Great Bend. That number jumped to 17 by Friday afternoon, and by Saturday afternoon it had reached 19. However, there was no additional information about the last five cases. Barton County Public Information Officer Donna Zimmerman announced all further updates will now be provided on the Barton County website.
Access the information by visiting:
www.bartoncounty.org and clicking the COVID-19 link in the upper left-hand corner of the home page.
As of 3 p.m. Friday, the website showed 17 positive cases and one death. The county has issued 205 quarantine or isolation issues.
The Kansas Department of Health & Environment website also posts additional information and daily statewide statistics at: http://www.kdheks.gov/.
As with previous confirmed cases, Zimmerman stated that this does not mean that unidentified cases do not exist elsewhere in the county and does mean precautions should be taken by ALL residents of the county in all areas. County officials continue to monitor the situation and take appropriate action, including the issuance of quarantine/isolation orders.
“This is a very serious and sometimes deadly virus.
We strongly encourage the public to take this pandemic seriously by practicing social distancing and staying home if at all possible,” Zimmerman stated.
Barton County Health Department continues to identify close contacts of the individuals of each positive case. Close contact is defined as being within 6 feet for a prolonged period (10 minutes or longer) or having direct contact with infectious secreations. BCHD will actively monitor the close contacts for 14 days for symptoms.
State numbers
There were 6,501 (6,431 confirmed and 70 probable) cases from 82 Kansas counties with 152 deaths reported as of 9 a.m. Friday when the latest COVID-19 Summary is published. As of Saturday afternoon, the number of cases was up to 6,751, but a summary will not be available until Monday. According to the KDHE, as of the Friday report:
• There have been 608 of 4,104 cases that have been hospitalized.
• There have been 40,276 negative tests conducted at KDHE and private labs.
• Age range is 0 years to 100 years (median 42 years)
• There have been 2,802 positive tests at KHEL and 3,629 at private labs.
• 2,747 cases are female and 3,635 are male and 119 unknown.
On Thursday, KDHE began to include probable cases. Probable cases are determined through local health departments’ investigations of confirmed cases and are defined as:
• Presumptive laboratory evidence (serology) with compatible symptoms or epi-linked to
confirmed case, OR
• No laboratory testing for COVID-19 in a person with COVID-19 compatible symptoms and epi-linked to a confirmed case.
The Friday morning preliminary numbers for area counties: Barton 14, Ellis 9, Ellsworth 2, Rice 3, Reno 52, Stafford 1, Edwards 4. Pawnee, Rush and Russell counties all had 0 confirmed cases.
Ford County became the county with the most cases, 1,027. Wayandotte county also surpassed 1,000 cases at 1,001.
