BY JUSTIN SABATA
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Monday<\/strong> As has been the case for a few months, Ellis County Director of Health Services Jason Kennedy had to repeat himself when giving his COVID report to the county commission. \u201cSeems like a broken record every week – cases are up, impacts are up,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cYou see it in the news media – it doesn\u2019t matter whether you\u2019re liberal or conservative – both news stations say the same thing; cases are up nationwide, cases are up worldwide.\u201d However, as communities around the world are experiencing a second or third wave of the virus, Ellis County has yet to see this wave according to Kennedy. \u201cEllis County, we\u2019re actually flat,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been consistently flat for a couple weeks, you know, three or four weeks.\u201d The health director also reported a decline from the county\u2019s COVID peak from early September, as the two-week cases per-100,000 people (a metric used to equate large and small communities) has declined by more than half since then (1,236 cases in September, 539 reported on Monday). The weekly percent-of-positives is still high in Ellis County, with the overall rate steadily increasing (12.3% last week, 12.6% on Monday). However, asymptomatic individuals in the county have not been tested as often according to Kennedy. \u201cWe don\u2019t lack testing, we have a significant amount of testing,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have as many people reaching out to be tested, especially asymptomatic people. We are testing all symptomatic people, we\u2019ve never turned anybody away from the start.\u201d For the past two weeks, the county has had a consistent weekly average of 13 new COVID cases per week. Kennedy predicted cases and the weekly average will continue to increase due to the colder weather ahead. \u201cAs we see flu season coming on, people are going to be more symptomatic, they\u2019re going to seek out medical care, they\u2019re going to have COVID,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re going to see cases continue to go up – we\u2019ll see that number probably not significantly higher than what it is, but it will stay consistent at least for the foreseeable future.\u201d Kennedy also addressed the statewide concerns over hospital capacity during the pandemic. \u201cIf you look at the Kansas data, we have 5,329 in-patient beds available,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201c5,000 beds in the Kansas hospital network that are available.\u201d The health director also reported 82% of the state\u2019s ventilators are still available, as well as 43% of Intensive Care Unit beds. On Monday, there were 16 total COVID-19-related deaths in Ellis County. Though it is not an easy subject to turn into a statistic, the numbers identify one of the demographics most affected by the ongoing pandemic. \u201cIf we look, statistically speaking, we know the population that is at risk,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201c50% of the total death toll in the state of Kansas comes out of long-term care residents. In Ellis County, 90% of the death toll comes out of long-term care residents.\u201d Kennedy predicted an effective vaccine for individuals aged 65 and younger will not be available for at least a year. \u201cWe know what we can do to help,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cEvery person has been educated for the last ten-and-a-half months on measures they can personally take to lessen the impact to the family, to the individual, to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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