KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The overall COVID-19 trends in Johnson County, Kansas, are going the wrong direction.
A day after the Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported a significant increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the county, the Johnson County, Kansas, Department of Health and Environment moved its recommendation for learning mode from orange to red.
“Schools need to be more vigilant,” reads an update from JCDHE’s COVID-19 dashboard on Tuesday.
According to Tuesday’s update, the county now has an incidence rate of 375 new cases per 100,000 people during the last two weeks. The county’s 14-day positivity rate now stands at 10.4%.
Guidelines set out by health officials originally suggested that an incidence rate above 250 would be the primary metric for a recommendation that schools stay in remote learning.
But despite a spiking incidence rate and a positivity rate that’s now higher than at any point since late March, the health department is not recommending that area school districts make any changes to learning modes.
“While JCDHE is not currently recommending that schools change how they are currently operating, schools need to continue to be vigilant,” the health department wrote. “Data shows that the mitigation efforts the school districts have implemented have worked thus far. JCDHE will continue to work with school districts to monitor the situation.”
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