By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — After spending the entire month of April calling for more testing and more data, Reno County's top health official still believes progress is being made, but slowly.
It feels like we're taking shots in the dark," said Nick Baldetti. "Maybe we've got a couple nightlights in the room now."
A mobile testing site started in Hutchinson on Thursday, but the results from that are still a little way out.
"We still need a lot of information to have the best informed decisions moving forward," Baldetti said. "In the absence of that, I do think that where we're at today is certainly better than where we were at April 1.
From an Emergency Management perspective, director Adam Weishaar believes this event is far from over.
This is completely different from any other disaster that we've ever worked or that I've ever worked," Weishaar said. "In a normal disaster, we have a clear cut beginning, middle and end and then you immediately go into recovery. This is very long and drawn out. It's a lot different than any other disaster. I know it's a public health emergency, but in my eyes, we're still looking at it as a disaster. We're still in response mode."
Weishaar expects to see a resurgence of the virus sometime in the fall and so it definitely isn't time to stand down by any means.