HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Reno County Commissioners got their weekly update on the pandemic during Tuesday’s meeting.
One topic that drew the most discussion comes from the state’s decision to add probable cases of COVID-19 to the overall number of positive cases in the state.
“The Kansas Department of Health and Environment made the decision May 7 to begin to include probable cases in addition to laboratory-confirmed cases,” Health Department Director Nick Baldetti said. “There was no real communication in terms of that new methodology.”
Baldetti says that change has accounted for 11 cases in the county.
“If you were to go out on the state’s website right now as opposed to our dashboard, we’re reporting 41 total cases with three active. If you go to the KDHE they have us listed at 52,” Baldetti said. “Those probable cases are identified via a disease investigation at the local level, but again the decision to count them in total counts at the state level, we’re still seeking an explanation on that.”
The other matter discussed was the continued issues with the Walmart testing site at the fairgrounds and the lack of information that has come from the two weekends of testing. Baldetti wanted to stress that the tests at the fairgrounds are in no way connected to the Health Department.
“That testing site is not administered by the Reno County Health Department,” Baldetti said. “That is a program that is a partnership between the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and it is funded by Walmart and the lab that Walmart has partnered with for that is eTrueNorth Labs.”
Baldetti said it has been difficult to get information from the entities that conducted the tests and has already questioned their accuracy due to the way the tests were administered. One other issue that has come up is that there is at least one case where a person who took the Walmart test may have forged their results in an effort to get time off from work.
“In this particular instance, it looks like someone copied and pasted the language from the actual document into another document and edited it to say what they wanted it to say,” Baldetti said. “It raised some questions because some of the communication that was being relayed to the employer . . . did not synchronize with standard guidelines of what we would communicate, which raised red flags.”
Baldetti says they continue to try to work with the KDHE and the health agency that administered the tests to get the proper information out regarding the case rate.