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March 29th, 2024

county greeson schdSouthwest Medical Center Chief Operating Officer Mark Cowan, left, Chief Nursing Officer Sandra Cain and Seward County Health Department Administrator Brie Greeson answer questions from comissioners at Tuesday’s meeting about the local COVID-19 situation. L&T photo/Robert PierceROBERT PIERCE • Leader & Times

 

Earlier this month, the Liberal City Commission and USD 480 Board of Education chose new leadership for their respective boards.

All of the positions on those boards were filled by members who were not serving in those roles at the time they were chosen.

Tuesday night, the Seward County Commission chose its leaders for 2022, and unlike the school board and city commission, the board opted to stick with its current leadership.

Commissioners Ada Linenbroker and Randy Malin were approved, both by a 3-2 vote, as chair and vice chair respectively. In the nominating process, Commissioner Nathan McCaffrey nominated Linenbroker, while Commissioner Steve Helm picked Commissioner C.J. Wettstein as his nominee.

When the votes were cast, Linenbroker won the majority of the votes, with Helm and Wettstein voting “no.”

Similarly when the vice chair seat was being picked, Linenbroker chose Malin as her nominee, while Wettstein picked Helm. Again the vote was 3-2, with Helm and Wettstein against, to give Malin another year in the vice chair position.

Earlier in the meeting, commissioners heard from officials with the Seward County Health Department and Southwest Medical Center updating them on the county’s current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic.

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SCHD Administrator Brie Greeson said as of Tuesday night, there were currently 1,027 active COVID cases in the county of those who have been able to get tested.

“We are currently doing our best to investigate each positive case and get the people released who are able to be released under the new guidance,” she said.

When COVID was at its height in 2020, Greeson said other health department services did not have to be open, so this allowed employees to help out with the pandemic.

As of now, though, Greeson said she is managing to keep all SCHD services open while taking care of all of the active COVID cases.

“With this spike, I do ask that the public be patient with us we can to get everybody back to work and school,” she said.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment recently instructed health care facilities to stop contact tracing, and Greeson said as of Friday, that had been done locally.

“With that being said, we will still investigate positive cases, but we do not get into who each person was around or issue any letters of quarantine or isolation for those people,” she said. “It is now put back into the public’s responsibility. You’re positive, and please notify who you’ve been around. Only the positive cases will get release letters to go back into the workforce.”

Greeson next addressed state and national supply chain issues, saying COVID testing in Seward County remains minimal at this time.

“Multiple testing sites have closed due to absolutely no supplies,” she said.

As of Tuesday night, Greeson said SCHD had 470 test kits available, with no new shipments expected within the next two weeks.

“At this time, we’re going to perform around 75 tests, possibly less, per day to the general public until supply chain increases,” she said. “With the supply we currently have, they are either a 15-minute or 30-minute PCR (polymerase chain reaction), so our ability to be able to get through those quickly like we were before has dwindled as well.”

Greeson said she and officials with the local Emergency Operations Center both feel keeping children in school is a priority, and she is working with KDHE to become part of a program which will give the county the ability to receive supplies from the state to use for USD 480 staff and students.

“At this time, once all the supplies arrive, we will perform roughly 100 tests per day for USD 480 staff and students,” she said. “We will put out a press release as soon as all of the supplies and machines are here to be able to make this happen with specific instructions regarding testing times specific to USD 480 and specific testing times for the general population.”

In getting school populations tested, Greeson said the hope is to alleviate some of the local resources for people needing testing for school and returning to school.

“Once we are able to open up supplies, we can do more testing for the general public,” she said. “In the meantime, we will continue to open the testing site at 8:30 and do around 75 tests until our supply ultimately runs out, which it will. It’s not an ‘if’ now. It’s a ‘when.’ We’re doing the best we can.”

Up to this point, Seward County has been able to provide free COVID testing. Greeson said there is an option available for purchasing tests, but the numbers for money and tests, as well as the estimated time of arrival, are unknown at this time.

“I personally don’t feel this is a good option right now,” she said. “We have also had home kits that were donated to be used for emergency responders, jail staff, police, EMS workers and congregate settings, and we will use those for those to help alleviate that general population testing as we are able until those supplies run out.”

SWMC Chief Operating Officer Mark Cowan said since Jan. 1, the hospital is averaging 45 to 50 tests per day.

“We have direct contracts with these companies and supplies, and even they’re telling us now they’re looking at back orders,” he said. “We put in 10 to 20 boxes a week in an order, and in the last two weeks, we’ve gotten 10 boxes. It’s very limited as to what these companies are putting out, and we really don’t know week by week what we’re going to get.”

SWMC Chief Nursing Officer Sandra Cain said from Jan. 1 through Tuesday, 37 percent of the 604 patients the emergency room has been presented were COVID positive. She added the hospital is testing many of its employees, using up much of its supplies in that realm.

“We’re still doing elective procedures,” she said. “If the patient is not vaccinated, we do require testing. We’re using up tests there. Through this pandemic, we have not run into these supply chain issues with testing, so this is going to be something new for us.”

McCaffrey inquired about the amount of supplies available for testing in the immediate future.

“Should the community expect at some point in the next week for their to be little to no testing available compared to what they’re used to receiving?” he said.

Greeson said that is highly likely.

“We have been very fortunate in Seward County to get tested,” she said. “That will probably cease to exist in the next week unless something miraculous happens and we’re able to get testing supplies. We’re doing it for that general population who’s needing it for screening. What I challenged my EOC with today when we met was to start thinking about what your process is going to be if we don’t have testing supplies available. I think communitywide, that’s what we need to start looking at  because we are going to get to a point where we don’t have supplies.”

McCaffrey said the community needs to be prepared for what seems to be an eventual reality.

“I think it’s important we get our message on that pretty quick so people can start to prepare  for the fact the generous testing opportunities we’ve been able to offer for quite some time are drying up,” he said.

Greeson said with emergency orders now pulled from state legislation, testing kits alloted to counties have now been going to the private sector.

“That’s going to be a lot of home kits that are going to be available probably at those retailers  (CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, etc.) moving forward,” she said. “The thing I will caution with is in Kansas, we are not recognizing home tests unless they are witnessed by somebody who knows how to perform those or is performing them. Right now, we don’t have that capability.”

Administrator April Warden said the National Association of Counties had issued information similar to what commissioners heard Tuesday.

“This is nationwide,” she said. “I do think it’s a conversation I would like to have with the commissioners about what our protocol as the county is going to be because we know what the testing issue is. If employees  are sick, I would like to follow the guidance that Brie was giving us in our EOC meeting today where we just asked them to stay at home, whether we know if it’s strep, the flu, COVID, that the stay home for five days.”

Warden said the information given at the EOC meeting included a suggested guideline to allow people who have been fever free for 24 hours without fever-reducing medication to come back to work.

“Some of the pushback I’m getting from that is there is no payroll protection in place anymore,” she said. “The feds did away with that, so everybody’s using their personal PTO. Part of the issue we have with that is people are not wanting to stay  at home for five days because they don’t want to have to use their PTO or they don’t have PTO to stay at home.”

Warden said the county is seeing a number of its employees in various departments who are COVID positive at this time after being tested.

“We have those who have called and said, ‘We’ve waited out in the testing line, and we didn’t make the cut for that day to be tested,’” she said. “We’ve just asked they stay at home, but this is becoming more and more of a common problem.”

Greeson finished the discussion by reminding the commissioners of the recent change in guidelines by the USD 480 Board of Education to once again require masks in schools temporarily.

“In a perfect world, if that child tests positive and they are feeling better by day four, no fever-reducing meds and things, they will be able to go back to school on day six with a mask, and the other people in the household, if they so share that with the schools, they’re day zero is that day,” she said. “That 20 or 24 days we had in the beginning of COVID should be reduced in the family by possibly 10 days if the others are asymptomatic.”