Cowley County Public Health Officer Thomas Langer told KSOK-NewsCow Thursday morning that he’s heard it all so far in regards to the coronavirus pandemic.
Early on, when businesses and government entities shut down in March to avoid one case, Langer said he was getting several calls urging him to open everything back up.
But in the past seven days, cases of COVID-19 in Cowley County have increased from 15 to 32 and active cases have grown from 11 to 28 — and numbers are expected to continue to rise.
All of a sudden, Langer said, calls and emails from some citizens are urging the City-Cowley County Health Department to close things back down.
“We can’t do that,” Langer said. “We have to learn as a community and as individuals that this isn’t going away, so we have to learn how to be responsible and how to deal with this.”
According to the latest Kansas Department of Health and Environment report on the virus posted Wednesday, there are now 10,812 positive cases of COVID-19 across the state, 954 hospitalizations, 240 deaths and 112,930 negative tests.
An Ark City man who tested positive April 1 died a week later and remains the only death in the county connected to the virus.
Langer’s full interview from Thursday morning’s “Get Up & Go Show” can be heard below:
As of Thursday morning, the City-Cowley County Health Department has tested 1,036 people since a national emergency proclamation was issued by the White House on March 13.
Although that’s roughly just 3 percent of the county’s population — 34,908 people as of July 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — Langer said testing has increased significantly compared to what was available in March.
Langer said much has been learned about the virus, and that the health department and area hospitals are more ready and equipped now for the virus compared to March.
But, Langer said the virus is not going away any time soon.
“We have a long, long ways to go,” he said. “This is not going to be over in a month, it’s not going to be over in two months. We’re probably going to be looking at this ongoing for better than a year still — especially absent a vaccine or some kind of anti-viral that we can we have available on a mass basis for people to take to curb the illness.
“We still have a long ways to go, still.”
