Douglas County COVID-19 count remains at 43

photo by: Contributed/LMH Health

A COVID-19 drive-thru testing site at Lawrence's hospital, LMH Health, is pictured Tuesday, April 7, 2020.

The number of Douglas County residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 remains at 43, local officials announced Tuesday. No new cases have been announced since Saturday.

Of those 43, 27 cases are believed to have been contracted through travel, eight from local transmission and eight from contact with someone with a positive case.

Contact with a positive case means the health department has determined the person’s exposure to a known positive case was the source of his or her contracting COVID-19, whereas local transmission means the department’s investigators could not identify the source of the person’s disease and the person had not recently traveled to an area where COVID-19 was present.

The 43 local cases involve two people in their late teens, 18 people in their 20s, 10 people in their 30s, six people in their 40s, four people in their 50s, one person in his or her 60s, one person in his or her 70s and one person who is over the age of 80, according to Tuesday’s news release from the health department. Of those cases, 22 are men and 21 are women, the health department said.

Thirty-three out of the 43 people with cases of COVID-19 have recovered.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment announced that, as of 11 a.m. Tuesday, a total of 2,025 Kansas residents had tested positive for COVID-19, including 107 deaths as a result of the disease.

KDHE’s online map noted that 1,121 Douglas County residents have been tested for the disease so far. The county’s testing rate per 1,000 people was 9.17, the 10th highest in the state.

The daily update from LMH Health announced that, as of 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, there was one patient at Lawrence’s hospital with COVID-19 and none who were under investigation for the virus. LMH Health was using 11% of its ventilators on Tuesday, 13% of its critical care (ICU) beds and 26% of its hospital beds.

LMH Health had collected a total of 960 specimens for COVID-19 testing as of Tuesday, and 39 of those specimens had tested positive for the virus. On Monday alone, LMH Health collected 19 specimens.

More coverage: Coronavirus (COVID-19)

As the pandemic continues, the Journal-World will be making coverage of COVID-19 available outside of the paywall on LJWorld.com.

Find all coverage of city, county and state responses to the virus at: ljworld.com/coronavirus/

What to do if you think you may have COVID-19

Patients who have symptoms — difficulty breathing, cough and fever — should stay home, immediately isolate themselves from others and call their health care providers. Patients should never show up unannounced at a medical office or hospital. Instead, they should call ahead to explain their symptoms and give health care workers the ability to minimize the risk to others.

If patients do not have health care providers, they may call the Lawrence Douglas-County health department’s coronavirus line, 785-856-4343.

For updated information on the outbreak, Kansas residents can email COVID-19@ks.gov or call 866-534-3463 (866-KDHEINF), which is staffed 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday; 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday; and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

More information can be found through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s website or the Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health website.

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