An isolation order has been issued in Cowley County for residents who have traveled, according to a press release Thursday night from Cowley County Public Health Officer Thomas Langer.
Langer, who spoke with KSOK-NewsCow on air Friday morning, said the order focuses on international travel and places in the U.S. where coronavirus cases have been more widespread.
“What everybody needs to truly understand is that things have changed so rapidly in this last week,” Langer said.
Langer said residents should understand quarantine and isolation protocols in regards to any exposure to the virus.
“As of (Thursday) night, there were no cases of COVID-19 in our county,” Langer said. “We would like to keep it that way. What we’re finding out is that this disease is spreading a lot faster by more person-to-person contact than what we truly thought it was initially.”
Langer’s full interview from Friday morning’s edition of the Get Up & Go Show:
Still, Langer acknowledge the difficulty of issuing the travel order, especially as families plan spring break and summer activities.
“We really are concerned about what you may have been exposed to while you’ve been away and are you bringing it back home,” he said. “Sounds kind of sketchy to some folks, but in reality, that’s how it’s going to come to Cowley County.
“It won’t originate here. Somebody will bring it here.”
Langer said Thursday night’s order was spurred by the latest cases reported in the Kansas City area, where three co-workers who had traveled to Florida for a work-related conference have taken ill upon their return and have been confirmed by testing to have the COVID-19 virus.
The first coronavirus-related death was reported in Wynedotte County Thursday night as well, leading Gov. Laura Kelly to hold a press conference to declare a state of emergency. The deceased was a man in his 70s who was in a nursing home.
“He hadn’t traveled anywhere, somebody brought that in,” Langer said. “So our concern right now, is we don’t want those type of activities to be occurring in our county. We have an elder population that is a little bit higher than normal in our county… and I really don’t want to facilities to undergo something like what we’ve see happen in (Wynedotte) or anywhere else.”
Langer also discussed the differences between the flu and COVID-19.
“People probably get tired of hearing me talk about ‘get a flu shot, get a flu shot, get a flu shot,'” he said. “One of the things we have established within our population over the years is a bit of herd immunity to influenza. We’ve had many years of flu vaccines… what we do not have for COVID-19 is any kind of vaccine that can do it. So there is zero — zero — immunity to this illness. There is none. So, just by that fact alone it is going to be a higher risk for contagion among the population.”
Langer also said the risk for viral pneumonia is higher.
“In 2017 and 2018, we had the worst flu outbreak season in Cowley County in the last decade,” he said. “That resulted in about 10,000 people in our county that year having the flu or a flu-like illness. We had 22 people die. That was a bad, bad year — one that I look at and say, ‘Wow, we don’t ever want to have something like that happen again.’
“What we’re looking at right now, (according to) projections, is that this could be on a magnitude of five times worse, 10 times worse, than that year. And so that gives us a lot of reason for pause… I certainly do not want to lose 100-plus residents from our community to any disease.”
Langer also addressed testing.
“Testing right now is a challenge,” he said. “We don’t have the capacity that we’d like to have. I’d love to be able to get everyone in the community tested. We can’t right now, but if you start showing symptoms we are working hard to spin up our capacity to get people in and work with them.”
Langer said another concern is overloading hospitals. He advised the public to check out the health department’s website for updates and information regarding the virus, its symptoms and preparedness.
The press release reads:
Effective March 12, 2020 , a standing order from the Cowley County Public Health Officer is in effect in Cowley County pursuant to K.S.A. 65-129b.(B). whereas any individual(s) deemed to have been exposed to the Wuhan Novel Coronavirus commonly named COVID-19 must remain in a place of isolation for a period of fourteen (14) days or until such time that contagion can be ruled out. All physicians and health care facilities are empowered to inform individuals that meet the requirements of being exposed of this requirement and must report the information to the Cowley County Public Health Officer for health monitoring. This order will remain in place until such time that COVID-19 is no longer deemed a public health emergency in the United States.
Exposure is defined and established by the CDC, KDHE and the local Public Health Officer as a person(s) returning from travel in high risk country or exposure via close contact with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patient or travel within a community in the US where active person to person disease spread is ongoing.
Today, Kansas recorded three new cases of COVID-19 in the Kansas City area. Three co-workers who had traveled to Florida for a work related conference have taken ill upon their return and have been confirmed by testing to have the COVID-19 virus. While these illnesses are travel related in nature they illustrate the ease in which the disease can be acquired
Locally as students and families from Cowley County embark and return on Spring break vacations that are currently ongoing we need to step up our surveillance of individual health conditions in order to limit and spread of disease. Physicians and other health care providers are authorized to restrict individuals to isolation in the home until confirmation that latent illness does not exist can be had.
The Health Department will be coordinating community disease surveillance during this time as we work to stop this illness before it can spread widely in our county. The Public Health Officer will continue to provide statements to the public as needed in the days and weeks ahead. We remind everyone that as of today there is no need to worry needlessly. The probability of local residents contracting this illness remains low but our overall risk level may be increasing as people who have traveled return home.
As community members you are urged to please practice good personal hygiene habits that help control the spread of all disease; wash your hands often using soap and water, restrict touching your face especially your eyes and mouth, cover your coughs and sneezes. Understand what the key symptoms of onset COVID-19 are and if you are ill please stay home and contact the Health Department or your health care provider. Influenza, colds, and now dust, pollen and smoke are all present in our current daily environments and each can cause respiratory distress. Please help us help you as we work to keep our community healthy.
