BY JUSTIN SABATA
The Ellis County Health Department will now be announcing new COVID-19 case information in a different way. Instead of reporting the amount of new cases between two announcement periods (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), the ECHD will instead post new cases based on a per-day, seven-day average.
Ellis County Director of Health Services Jason Kennedy said during Monday’s county commission meeting, the change is based on the time it takes some tests to report back to the ECHD. The new case numbers will be based on the information gathered a week before the announcement date.
“The acute tests that we’re seeing – especially with HaysMed, and we’re seeing with First Care Clinic, and the walk-in clinic, and the doctor’s offices – we’re still seeing those come back in 48, sometimes 24 hours,” Kennedy said. “But, a lot of the asymptomatic testing that’s happening, those test results are coming back at an extended duration.”
Kennedy further explained the new metric that will be utilized by the ECHD.
“That way people can kind of use that to gauge trends; so they can look back and say, ‘Well, for the last seven days, it’s been about 18 cases a day,’” Kennedy said. “So, if I want to figure out how many cases we’ve had in the last two days, take two times eighteen and that should give you a fairly good approximation.”
The department announced Monday on the Ellis County COVID-19 Portal that there have been about 18 new cases per day during the past week on average. The weekly average percent-of-positives rate is also high at 29.4%. The health director described the reason for the high percentage.
“A lot of that is due to we actually see less people, less testing going on than there was a couple weeks ago,” Kennedy said. “But, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have more in the community as well.”
On Monday, there were 193 active cases and six active hospitalizations. There have been no deaths reported in the community due to COVID-19 as the toll remains at three. However, the health director pointed out the negative trend in cases and encouraged the public to still take proper precautions.
“What that means is things are not better this week,” Kennedy said. “We still need people to make good choices, but like we talked before, what we see this week is what we did two weeks ago, what we did last week. Not what we do today.”
A majority of COVID tests in Ellis County have been conducted on individuals in long care facilities.
“They (long term care facilities) have done everything they can, they’ve gone above and beyond. But, you know, some of these people have been tested six, eight times,” Kennedy said. “We’ve got people with Alzheimer’s, with dementia, with all that kind of stuff. So, it truly is unfortunate the amount that they’ve had to go through to try and keep them safe.”
Health precautions recommended by the ECHD include eliminating contact with other people, staying home if not feeling well, contacting a primary care physician if symptoms are present, washing hands, wearing a mask if social distance is not possible, and staying out of groups or mass gatherings.
Fort Hays State University has not updated their campus COVID numbers since September 11. However, FHSU announced the completion of university re-entry COVID tests and will be moving on to surveillance testing until the end of the semester.
In an email sent to students, which was also posted to the FHSU COVID-19 Response, the saliva tests are voluntary and available to those exposed to the virus on campus. The groups included the testing program are:
- University housing residents
- Athletic teams
- On-campus students and faculty
- Department employees who are in contact with campus community
- Campus employees in contact with each other as a group
The university will also continue testing at the Student Health Center located on campus in the Memorial Union.