photo by: Contributed/LMH Health

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

Douglas County reported 57 cases of COVID-19 as of Monday, local officials said.

Starting Monday, Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health changed the way it reports cases to match that of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health is now including probable cases in its total count. A probable case is someone with consistent symptoms who is a contact of a positive case, but who has not yet been tested. There was one probable case included in the 57 reported cases, marking an increase of one from the health department’s Friday release. The health department has known about this probable case, however, since May 5, which was the last day a new case has been reported in the county.

This means that the number of COVID-19 cases in Douglas County had remained steady as of last Tuesday. From May 5 to May 10, Douglas County gave out a higher number of tests than any other six day period in the last month. Despite this, positive cases remained static after the initial increase on the afternoon of May 5.

Dan Partridge, director of Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, wrote in an email to the Journal-World that this lack of new cases, despite increased testing, was likely due to Douglas County residents following health orders and guidelines. The low number of local transmission cases in the county is evidence, he wrote, that compliance with isolation and quarantine orders is high. As of Monday, 12 of Douglas County’s 57 cases were acquired via local transmission.

“What counties with high case counts all have in common is a source of local exposure such as a workplace, congregate living or church,” Partridge wrote.

In early April, Douglas County at one point had the second-highest testing rate out of any county in the state. As of Monday, Douglas County was tied for 30th out of Kansas’ 105 counties for its testing rate per 1,000 people.

Partridge said the county’s successful testing rate early on was a product of an efficient system set up to get people tested, and that the county’s fall in testing rates compared to other counties is likely due to the lack of an outbreak in Douglas County.

“While we would like to see higher test rates, LDCPH is currently constrained to testing only symptomatic individuals,” he wrote. “Counties with a higher testing rate now tend to have local congregate or workplace exposure that allows for the testing of asymptomatic people.”

According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, the county’s testing rate per 1,000 people was 16.24 as of Monday. KDHE’s online map noted that 1,986 Douglas County residents have been tested for the disease so far.

In Douglas County, 47 out of the 57 people with confirmed cases of COVID-19 have recovered, Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health said in its daily update, and one patient at Lawrence’s hospital had COVID-19 on Monday, according to the daily release from LMH Health.

This article has been updated to reflect that the probable case, upping the county’s COVID-19 count to 57, has been known to Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health since May 5, meaning Douglas County has not seen a new COVID-19 case since then.