KANSAS CITY, Kan. — More expanded COVID-19 testing will begin in Wyandotte County on Monday, April 13.
The county health department will be testing outside its Ann Avenue headquarters in downtown Kansas City, Kansas Monday through Friday from 2 to 5 p.m.
Based on population estimates and testing results to date, Wyandotte County is the hardest hit county in the metro with one case for every 607 people.
By comparison, Jackson County, Missouri has one case for every 2,000 people, and Johnson County, Kansas has one case for every 2,346 people.
A young woman named Daja said she went to the Wyandotte County Health Department Thursday hoping to get a check up as a walk-in patient.
However, the clinic there is only taking patients by appointment.
Daja is currently a cafeteria worker in a Wyandotte County-area school waiting for her unemployment checks to start arriving.
She says her uncle in Arkansas has coronavirus and has been hospitalized the last two weeks, though she doesn't know anyone in KCK with the virus.
But Wyandotte County interim Public Health Director Terrie Garrison is very concerned for the community.
"I think all communities have been hit harder than what their testing results are actually showing," she said.
Part of the reason Garrison feels that way is limited testing.
The Health Department just recently began limited testing of sick people and has done about 50 tests so far.
"We started with a lab that's local, so we get our results back within 24 to 48 hours," Garrison said.
She says Wyandotte County is especially vulnerable to the virus.
According to the new 2020 survey for Kansas public health outcomes, Wyandotte County is ranked last in the state.
Garrison says one reason is due to a high population of residents with underlying health issues.
"They are very much at high risk, many of them also do not have health insurance," she said.
"It makes me very sad because this is a life or death issue," Janice Witt, a local activist, said.
Witt says among the issues in Wyandotte County is a lack of personal protection equipment or PPE.
Wearing a face mask, she displayed a table of items ranging from rubber gloves to cleaning supplies to vitamin supplements to show what can help ward off the virus.
Garrison says Wyandotte County Emergency Management has been handing out PPE.
"We do try to provide PPE to as many facilities as we can. Again PPE is in short supply, so that makes it challenging," she said.
Doctor Sharon Lee has been performing drive-up COVID-19 testing, by doctor's prescription only, at her KCK clinic for three weeks.
To date, her clinic has done about 200 tests with results on about 70 tests still pending.
Of the 130 test results, she says about 40 people have tested positive for the virus.
Two of those people have died.
She believes the problem is far worse than the data suggests.
Lee, for example, said a patient and her husband died, but only her patient was tested for the virus.
She's hearing about other people being found dead in their homes who also haven't been tested.
Lee says it's no time to stop social distancing.
She's especially concerned about cultural issues which can be problematic.
Lee says for example, Hispanic families sometimes like to bring the entire family when they go grocery shopping.
She says only one family member should go buy food.
Lee, Garrison and Witt all agree another factor in the Wyandotte County spread is the large number of essential workers in health care, food service and other day jobs.
And many of those workers take public transportation.
"When you look at the fact that they shut down everything except the bus lines in Wyandotte County, you know that there are going to be people on those buses who are going to be affected," Witt said.
Witt, a former nurse, says in particular, she's heard from people in the health care industry who aren't being tested or getting adequate PPE, even in places where patients have died from COVID-19.
"These people are taking care of everyone. They're wiping the butts of the community and that is the truth," she said.
What especially concerns Garrison is the possibility of large religious gatherings during Passover and Easter.
"We've had several of our cases and outbreaks come out of church gatherings," she said.
Additionally, more than half of Wyandotte County residents like Daja are either black or Hispanic.
Currently, there's no data breaking down coronavirus patients by race.
"We're really just now delving into that information within Wyandotte County," Garrison said.
"I don't think for one minute that an effort has been made to show a true breakdown of where this sickness is," Witt said.
Lee's clinic can be reached by calling 913-396-7070, Monday through Friday between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
While Lee's clinic only takes appointments with a doctor's prescription, the health department clinic will screen for sick people and test without a doctor's prescription.
An appointment can be made by visiting the health department's website or by calling 311 and requesting help to fill out an application for an appointment.
