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NICK GOSNELL
Hutch
Post
HUTCHINSON,
Kan. —&nbsp;Reno County Interim Health Officer Karen Hammersmith noted that the clusters in the county do not account for how fast COVID is growing."We have wide community spread," Hammersmith said Tuesday. "The clusters you kind of understand where people have gotten that from and where they've been and the exposure, so that's kind of a known entity. It's more of a problem when they don't know it."Of the 565 cases in the county as of Tuesday afternoon, 394 are cluster connected, according to the dashboard. That would leave 171 cases that could be attributed to community spread, if they did not occur within the same family."Community spread then, is just all over," Hammersmith said. "You could get it at the grocery store, at Dillons, Walmart, at church, at school, at work, because those would be people carrying things that we don't necessarily know."That's why the community testing continues to be important, because it can catch those cases that are community spread where the person doesn't know they have it and therefore doesn't know where they got it. "If they do have symptoms, we'd like them to go to their provider and get checked out," Hammersmith said. "If not, we're doing community testing so we can see if there is any cases out there that are going undetected."Community testing continues Thursday in Buhler and Saturday in Pretty Prairie. To schedule your appointment, call 844-834-3657.

Hammersmith: Community spread is happening, community testing will help