photo by: Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health

Sept. 4 COVID-19 update from the health department

A resident of Lawrence Presbyterian Manor who had previously tested positive for COVID-19 died on Wednesday, according to a press release from the long-term care facility.

Christie Patrick, executive director of Lawrence Presbyterian Manor, said in Friday’s press release that the entire community was mourning.

“It is always difficult to lose one of our beloved residents, and our hearts are broken,” she said.

Lawrence Presbyterian Manor, 1429 Kasold Drive, announced a cluster of cases at the facility on Aug. 17. Since then, the community has been engaging in mass testing. The most recent round of mass testing, which occurred on Sept. 1, resulted in no new positive cases, the release also stated.

On Thursday, Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health announced a new COVID-19-related death in Douglas County and said it was a woman age 85 or older who had not been hospitalized.

Douglas County has reported 1,566 cases of COVID-19 as of Friday, an increase of 58 cases since Thursday.

The county has averaged about 25 new cases per day over the last 14 days, according to a 14-day moving average graph updated weekdays by the health department. The current average of 25 new cases per day is down from a recent high of 43 cases per day in late August and up significantly from a recent low of about nine cases per day in early August.

In Douglas County, 996 out of the 1,566 cases are inactive or beyond the infectious period, according to Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health.

Five patients at Lawrence’s hospital had COVID-19 on Friday, one more than Thursday.

The Douglas County Community Scorecard noted three new outbreaks of COVID-19 in Douglas County this past week. An outbreak is defined as two or more cases not from the same household with the same identified source of exposure. The scorecard also notes that 35 cases from this past week were due to community transmission; that is, the cases could not be linked to a known case, an outbreak or travel.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s online map noted that 25,886 Douglas County residents had been tested for the disease so far. The county’s testing rate per 1,000 people was 211.7. Douglas County has the second-highest testing rate out of Kansas’ counties, following Ford County, which has a testing rate of 260.1 people per 1,000.

Nine Douglas County residents have died thus far from COVID-19 or with the virus as a contributing factor in their deaths.