County smashes COVID-19 peak

27 cases in 8 days
mark re-entry into red zone

By ALEXANDER SIMONE

Staff writer

Marion County’s current spate of reported positive COVID-19 cases breaks previous peak-highs from mid-July and early September.

The county is back to “red zone” status, meaning the number of reported cases increased by at least 1 per 1,000 in the last week. Some regions require quarantine any time someone visits a red zone.

The county’s rate per 1,000 people on Oct. 13 was 11.2 but it jumped to 12.8 in just seven days, thanks in part to 12 cases reported Friday.

Friday’s increase was the county’s biggest one-day jump yet, including three teenage boys and one teenage girl. County health nurse Diedre Serene said she did not know whether the teens were school-related cases.

One was presumed to be a Goessel High School student. The school canceled its football game Friday because of a positive COVID test.

Additional cases reported Friday included a woman in her 20s, two women in their 50s, two women in their 70s, a man in his 70s, a man in his 80s, and a woman in her 90s.

Tuesday’s two new cases, a woman in her 20s and a teenage girl, raised the county’s total to 153 reported cases.

Monday’s new cases were for two women in their 70s and two men in their 20s.

The county health department has been sending lists of all household cases of COVID-19 to Kansas Department of Health and Environment for contact tracing since Oct. 8 because of staffing shortages.

“We only have two part-time nurses doing this,” Serene. “One part-timer is working pretty much full-time.”