The City-Cowley County Health Department has reported a new case of COVID-19 in Cowley County, according to a news release from the the health department Friday morning.
The virus has been confirmed in a female that has had no travel history outside of Cowley County. This is the first new case in the county over the past three weeks. Disease investigation and close contact tracing is underway.
The release said Cowley County Public Health Officer Thomas Langer will make further announcements as details become available.
The City-Cowley County Health Department has tested 596 people as of Wednesday afternoon since March.
Since a national emergency proclamation was issued by the White House on March 13, the City-Cowley County Health Department has now confirmed seven positive cases, but two of those cases involved individuals who either live out of the county or have dual-residency in another county. Those records have been transferred to their respective county health departments and the official count for Cowley County is five.
Other cases consist of one woman, an Ark City man who died a week after testing positive in April, a Creekstone employee and a Cowley County resident that became infected with COVID-19 while working in another Kansas community. Since that individual resides in Cowley County, the case was transferred to the City-Cowley County Health Department.
On Wednesday, Langer issued a new local public health order for the county following the aftermath of political posturing in Topeka last week that led Gov. Laura Kelly to leave COVID-19 response up to county health departments.
The new order from Langer adopts the current framework of the Ad Astra Plan to Reopen Kansas originally issued by the state as guidance, but allows for the guidance to be amended locally to fit local needs of the county so long as the public health indicators connected to COVID-19 remain stable or in decline.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported Wednesday afternoon 9,337 positive coronavirus cases across the state, including 822 hospitalizations, 205 deaths and 75,151 negative tests.
Sedgwick County reports 543 cases, Butler County has 30, Sumner County counts seven with a new case this week and Kay County, Oklahoma, has 52 cases and remains at seven deaths.
Overall, the state of Oklahoma reports 6,270 cases and 326 deaths.
