photo by: Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health

Nov. 24 COVID-19 update from the health department.

After receiving a closure order from the health department on Tuesday, a North Lawrence adult entertainment club appealed the order and then got the order suspended by the director of the health department.

Allstars Gentlemen’s Club, 913 N. Second St., was issued a closure order Tuesday morning after its third notice of noncompliance with local health orders that require establishments to close after a certain time, health department spokesperson George Diepenbrock told the Journal-World in an email.

Allstars then appealed the order and requested a hearing with Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health. That hearing was granted, and after the hearing the health department’s director, Dan Partridge, suspended the closure order because the establishment agreed to comply in the future.

“This is part of our process of enforcing the public health order that is geared toward limiting high-risk environments for COVID-19 exposure, and we are committed to this process,” Partridge said. “This process is geared toward gaining compliance, and we are grateful for all the businesses in our community that are complying with the order and working hand in hand with our staff to ensure they are creating environments that limit risk during this pandemic.”

Allstars was the second Douglas County establishment to be issued a closure order. The first order was issued earlier this month to The Flamingo Club, another North Lawrence adult entertainment club, at 140 N. Ninth St. In both cases, the businesses requested a hearing and, after agreeing to comply with the health order, had their closure order suspended.

As the Journal-World has reported, Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health said previously that violations of the health order would first be responded to with a letter. Failure to comply a second time could result in a second violation letter. Any failure after that, the health department said, may result in the closing of the establishment.

Douglas County reported 4,551, cases of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, an increase of 103 cases since Monday. Diepenbrock said the county was starting to see positive cases from the asymptomatic testing events that began on Saturday. The health department expects those events to add about 20 to 30 cases each day to the regular numbers.

“Our case counts are still high, but they appear to be stabilizing,” Partridge said in Tuesday’s update. “These mass testing events are important and will help us to identify people who might be asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 and isolate them to prevent them from spreading it to others, especially those who might be especially vulnerable.”

Of the 4,551 cases in Douglas County, 3,413 are inactive or beyond the infectious period, meaning 1,138 cases are active.

The county has averaged about 69 new cases per day over the last 14 days, which is the highest number since the pandemic began, according to a 14-day moving average graph updated weekdays by the health department. The current average of 68.5 new cases per day is up from a recent low of 18 cases per day in mid-October.

Twenty-five patients at Lawrence’s hospital had COVID-19 on Tuesday, four fewer than Monday. Twenty-two county residents have died from the virus thus far.