By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — According to Karen Hammersmith with the Reno County Health Department, it's not necessarily that things are appreciably better or worse right now than they have been in recent weeks, but the circumstances regarding COVID-19 remain difficult.
"We're just in the thick of it," Hammersmith said Tuesday. "We look at what's going on in the hospital every single day. They are really stretched thin. We have so many patients that are in the hospital. As of right now, we have 38 patients that are in the hospital. We have three patients on ventilators, two of them are confirmed COVID positive earlier today. It's just a huge problem that's going on. These patients are very sick. They stay in the hospital quite a while once they are admitted. If we didn't have the positive test rate that we had, we wouldn't have quite so many admits in the hospital."
Holiday celebrations did not help.
"We have some family clusters," Hammersmith said. "They're being named in our area. That doesn't necessarily mean that's going to be published or anything, but if they had get togethers over Thanksgiving and they have six out of the ten people that were there test positive seven days out or more, then those are clusters."
Hammersmith doesn't expect any reduction between now and Christmas.
"We just have more in our community," Hammersmith said. "We have a lot of cases. They do keep coming in. When we're indoors, that just spreads more. That's how colds and flu season spread so much more, too. People go inside. Separate as much as you can. Staying at home when you're ill. That's the best thing. We hear a lot of people say, I really just have a runny nose or cough, so I don't think that's COVID. Generally, right now, that's what's circulating and so that runny nose is probably COVID, so please stay at home."
Community testing continues on the Kansas State Fairgrounds on Tuesdays.