By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — To say Reno County Health Department Director Nick Baldetti is frustrated by the fact that four reported positive COVID-19 cases from Tuesday are as the result of one person who was supposed to voluntarily quarantine not doing so, is the apex of understatement.
"We're still waiting on a few tests associated potentially with this vector," Baldetti said. "I'm more concerned with the actions of non-compliance and adherence by this particular individual and the ramifications of those actions than I am the third-tier downstream spread potentially."
Reno County District Attorney Keith Schroeder responded to the hypothetical of such a person infecting someone who was eventually hospitalized or worse. Statutes written for things like HIV spread don't really apply here.
"The normal statute that deals with exposing another to a life-threatening communicable disease wouldn't apply in this situation," Schroeder said. "That only applies to transmission by either sex or donation of blood or by hypodermic syringes. We'll have to look at the facts to determine exactly what we could do."
The concern is that even a few acts of non-compliance could set the county way back in its reopening timeline.
"At the doorstep of a potential reopening plan, whether that be a state-driven plan or a locally enforced plan, regardless, the success of any plan that is put forth is predicated on each and every individual," Baldetti said. "Whether it's a business owner, an employee, a proprietor, a lay individual, each one of us, each one of 61,000 and some odd Reno County constituents has a part to play."
The county had 72 tests outstanding in total as of Wednesday morning.