KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As parents continue to debate whether or not their children should start school in-person, 41 Action News has received questions about the gating criteria the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment is using to draft its recommendations.
Among the concerns is whether the coronavirus positivity percentage rate the county is using is skewed.
“Nothing can be further from the truth,” JCDHE director Dr. Sanmi Areola said. “We are testing people with symptoms and people without symptoms.”
Since April, Johnson County has offered testing for people displaying COVID-19 symptoms and people who don’t. Each day, the county tracks how many of those tested actually test positive for COVID-19. From there, the percent of positivity based on a 14-day moving average is established.
As of Monday, the percent of positivity was at 10.5%, according to the county’s website.
“The positivity rate is really a measure of the level of transmission of the virus in the community,” Areola said.
He also suggested looking at the “absolute number of infections” reported weekly.
During the first three weeks of August, the number of new COVID-19 cases in Johnson County climbed steadily from 658 positives tests three weeks ago to 704 positive tests, according to county data. The number of new cases then jumped to 726 last week, a spike of more than 10% in newly detected cases during that span.
“No matter how we look at that data, our numbers are too high," Areola said. "The coronavirus is spreading. We don’t have it under control."
Johnson County currently is in the “red zone,” which advises middle and high school students start school remotely.
