photo by: Associated Press

Lee Norman, Kansas Department of Health and Environment secretary, discusses with Mary Beverly, interim director of Johnson County's health agency, three confirmed cases of coronavirus that appeared in patients in Johnson County during a press conference Thursday, March 12, 2020 at KDHE headquarters in Topeka. (Evert Nelson/The Topeka Capital-Journal via AP)

Story updated at 8:55 p.m. Thursday

Topeka — Kansas has seen its first COVID-19 death, a man in his 70s who lived in a nursing home in the Kansas City, Kan., area, state health officials announced Thursday.

The Wyandotte County man’s case had been the fifth confirmed novel coronavirus case in the state and the first in Kansas known to have been the result of a local spread of the virus.

Lee Norman, Kansas secretary of health and environment, said the man went to a local hospital Tuesday with what medical personnel thought were heart problems and was discovered to have a fever. He was not tested for coronavirus until after he died.

Norman said he did not know how the man was infected. But he acknowledged that someone brought the coronavirus into the nursing home, when the state’s four previous cases involved people who had become infected traveling out of state. He described the man as “not mobile.”

State and local officials did not identify the nursing home, which has about 80 beds, though not all of them were filled. State officials did not know whether other residents are ill or being tested yet.

“Yes, young people are relatively spared, but in this context it’s really critical to understand that they can be carrying the coronavirus,” Norman said.

Kelly declared a state of emergency so that the state can better free up resources. She said the state will ban large gatherings at the Statehouse and limit visitors to only people who have business before the Legislature.

“Every effort is being made to mitigate the spread of the virus, including quarantining all who are known to have been contact with this individual,” Kelly said. “We will use all resources necessary.”

Earlier Thursday, the state announced that three residents in the Kansas City area had come down with the new coronavirus.

Those three infected men, ages 35 to 65, all attended a conference in Florida in late February, but didn’t show symptoms until they returned to Kansas, said Mary Beverly, interim director of the Johnson County Health Department. The Johnson County residents have not been hospitalized and are not seriously ill, she said.

The state’s first case — a woman under 50 — also was reported in Johnson County earlier this month. Johnson County is the state’s most populous county, home to sprawling and affluent suburbs and engine of the state’s economy.

With professional and collegiate sports contests canceled, Kansas legislators contemplated whether they should take their annual spring break early. Norman said they should remain in session through April 3 as planned, but some lawmakers had doubts, given the regular flow of visitors to the Statehouse. The break is set to last until April 27.

House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr., an Olathe Republican, said legislative leaders are monitoring developments. As he spoke with two reporters, he put dollops of hand sanitizer gel on the reporters’ hands.

“We’re like a big Petri dish,” said House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat. “You know, it would take one person to get sick and you could spread it all over the place.”

State Sen. Tom Holland, a Baldwin City Democrat, canceled four town hall meetings with constituents scheduled for the last two weekends in March.

Public school officials also began to contemplate what might happen if health officials directed them to close a school.

Department of Education officials told local school districts Thursday that most of them would have a hard time meeting academic requirements for online courses and that their other options were to make up missed days in late May or ask the department to waive requirements that schools be in session 186 days.

Education Commissioner Randy Watson said the department has canceled all non-essential travel outside Kansas through April and urged school districts to have students who traveled out of state during spring break to report to the health department.

Watson called for “incredible hygiene” in school buildings and vigilance but added, “Panic is running too rampant across the United States, across our state and in our schools.”

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

The vast majority of people recover from the new virus. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.

The announcement of the latest coronavirus cases came hours after the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, Emporia State University and Wichita State University joined colleges across the country in shifting classes online to mitigate the spread of the new coronavirus.

Kansas, Kansas State and Emporia State are on spring break this week. The University of Kansas announced Wednesday and Kansas State and Emporia State said on Thursday that they would delay the start of classes that usually meet in-person until March 23, when the classes will be taught remotely. Kansas State and Emporia State said the remote classes would continue “until further notice.

The University of Kansas said its online classes may continue for several weeks, but its Dole Institute of Politics canceled its spring programs.

Wichita State, where spring break was scheduled to begin March 23, said Thursday it was canceling in-person classes next week and moving classes online after spring break.

Kansas State urged students to remain at home, away from the regular campus, unless they can’t return home due to travel restrictions.

Washburn University of Topeka announced it was shifting in-person classes through March 20 and that most classes after that date will be conducted online, urging students not to return to campus. Johnson County Community College announced that its campus would be closed to all but essential personnel through March 29, and that all classes would be moved online after that.

The Kansas Board of Regents, which governs the state’s public universities, voted Wednesday night to allow each school to make its own decision.