Allen County remains one of the few counties in Southeast Kansas, and even the state, yet to report a positive case of COVID-19, according to Friday’s data provided by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
The latest report shows Allen County has tested 42 people for suspicion of the virus, a rate of about 3.40 tests per 1,000 people.
Area counties report similar testing rates, while rates tend to be a bit higher in counties with confirmed cases and larger populations, including Douglas, Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties. Coffey County, where a Burlington nursing home has reported numerous cases, has tested 7.58 per 1,000 of population, the highest rate in the state. Coffey County has 18 confirmed cases.
The sparsely populated counties in Western Kansas also have a lower testing rate.
Anderson County also has not reported a positive case, despite a temporary error Thursday that indicated otherwise.
Forty-six out of 105 counties have reported at least one positive case, with Johnson County reporting the most with 171. The state has reported 620 cases with 17 deaths. The state’s data shows 6,454 negative tests.
Tests are restricted to those who meet specific criteria including symptoms and travel to specific areas, so it’s likely there are more positive cases than the data shows.
Social distancing efforts — keeping at least 6 feet of distance between yourself and others, and minimizing contact to less than 10 minutes — will have a dramatic impact on reducing the spread of the virus, Dr. Lee Norman, KDHE secretary, said.
“If we reduce the amount of people movement even 25 to 30 percent it goes down dramatically in terms of infection,” Norman said in a video posted Thursday. “Right now, the doubling time in the amount of cases — what it takes to go from 200 to 400, for example — is three days. If we can reduce movement by 35 to 40 percent, it goes to six or seven days of doubling time. And if we got to 55 percent, which is a fairly modest amount of people movement, it stretches out all the way to 10 days.”
For more information, go to kdheks.gov or find the statistics at govstatus.egov.com/coronavirus .
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