OTTAWA, Kan. — The surge in COVID-19 cases that is stressing hospitals in cities across the country, is being exacerbated as a rising tide of cases in rural areas forces some of those patients to be transferred for critical care.
Health officials in Franklin County, Kansas, have seen a spike in COVID-19 cases this month with more than 200 active cases added in November, already a record high for any period during the pandemic.
That represents nearly one-quarter of the 824 COVID-19 cases reported to date in Franklin County, according to the 41 Action News Daily COVID-19 Tracker.
"It’s very concerning for us," Franklin County Interim Health Department Director Nick Robbins said. "The metro hospitals we normally transfer to are starting to hit their capacity and getting nervous, so it’s something we’re monitoring daily, hourly, just to make sure we're able to get patients where they need to go."
To help flatten the curve, electronic signs have been placed in downtown Ottawa urging people to take the novel coronavirus seriously and wear a mask.
Ottawa Police Chief Adam Weingartner even took to social media, urging the community to take health precautions. He said the goal is not only to keep the town safe but his own officers.
"We just want to make sure that officers stay healthy for them and their families as well," Weingartner said, "and they can go out and do their job in the community."
It's a community split on wearing masks.
Franklin County officials have decided to follow Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly's statewide mask mandate order, but 41 Action News observed about half of people out in public actually following that order.
"I just believe if more people would wear masks it would get it better under control, and I don’t see a lot of people wearing them," Ottawa resident Terri Schendel said.
Businesses in Ottawa have seen different approaches from the public about mask-wearing.
"It’s one of those things that I think everybody is just trying to do their own thing," Mary Raley, owner of Maggie's Popcorn in Ottawa, said.
On the other side of the state line in Sedalia, the rise in cases has impacted how patients are treated at Bothwell Regional Health Center, where they’ve been full or near full for the last two weeks.
"On the medical unit where it cares for a lot of our COVID patients, we currently have 28 patients in house," Bothwell Regional Health Center CEO Lori Wightman said. "Our COVID units holds 26, so they’re spilling over into other areas."
There are a lot of moving pieces, Wightman said, but it definitely affects patient care.
"We could not safely admit one more patient to our ICU, yet all of the hospitals that we typically refer patients to were also full so that patients had to spend the night in our emergency room until the next morning when we could safely admit another patient into the ICU," she said.
Many rural communities are at their breaking point, but health officials also fear the worst is to come as cases are expected to skyrocket during the winter.
"It’s going to be a tough winter if we don’t get people to start wearing masks, social distancing and understand this is a real thing," Robbins said.
To learn more about Franklin County's health department, click here.
If you need information about Bothwell Regional Medical Center, click here.
