What are the COVID-19 rules in the Kansas City metro? Well, they’re all over the map
How can you tell what Kansas City’s COVID-19 mask mandates are without a program?
As COVID-19 restrictions start ending across the Kansas City metro, there’s absolutely no coherence or coordination to how it’s being done. Consider this mishmash of policies:
▪ Prairie Village is ending its mask mandate Oct. 31.
▪ Park Hill school district’s mask mandate lasts until Dec. 22.
▪ The Roeland Park City Council extended its mask order to Nov. 16.
▪ Kansas City’s mandate is in effect until Nov. 4.
▪ Kansas City, Kansas’ mask mandate goes through Nov. 18.
Where’s the cross-border cooperation we saw at the beginning of the pandemic? Having continued mandates in one city or county but not the next makes about as much sense as posting different speed limits every 100 feet.
And by the way, the COVID virus doesn’t slam on the brakes at the city limits or the county line. It’s just as dangerous on one side of a border as the other.
The COVID-19 virus and its delta variant aren’t political. Why is the Kansas City area setting COVID policies as if they were?
And where is the so-called CORE4 group of public officials and health leaders from Kansas City and Jackson County on the Missouri side and Wyandotte and Johnson counties on the Kansas side? As The Star has reported, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, those leaders “acted in lockstep” to establish a more uniform approach to COVID restrictions.
As recently as July, the CORE4 assembled to discuss reimposing restrictions due to the delta surge. What are they doing now, as restrictions are being lifted or extended here and there? The input of those metro health officers would help lessen the confusion and strengthen the scientific foundation for either lifting or retaining restrictions.
That discussion should be had in public — as opposed to the July CORE4 meeting, when members of the media were kicked out of the group’s Zoom gathering.
“Uniform lifting of restrictions is currently not being discussed,” confirms Johnson County Department of Health and Environment Dr. Sanmi Areola.
Although Johnson County only has a mask mandate for elementary schools, Areola said in a statement to The Star that “JCDHE continues to monitor our community metrics and have ongoing conversations with the CORE4 health departments. There are many factors that go into decision making in the different jurisdictions.”
Frank Thompson, Kansas City’s interim director of health, referred questions to Areola.
Is it possible area health directors just don’t want to get out in front of this? Has the political climate surrounding COVID-19, and the necessary government restrictions to fight it, simply become poisoned enough that health officials just want to let politicians take the heat?
If so, you couldn’t blame them. These health directors have done their level best to guide us safely through two dizzying years of a hundred-year pandemic. They deserve bouquets, not brickbats.
Johnson County Commission Chairman Ed Eilert — careful to note the county does not have a mask mandate for the public — says one reason for varying mask mandates in the area might be the different vaccination rates.
That could certainly be argued: Johnson County, with no mask mandate, has a 77% vaccination rate, according to the CDC. Rates in Wyandotte County and Jackson County are just below 60%. Case positivity rates also differ: While Johnson and Wyandotte’s positivity rates are below 6%, Jackson County’s is at 7.47%.
Still, if there’s a case to be made for varying restrictions in the metro area, health officials should make that argument publicly — even though they would no doubt have to acknowledge that, once again, borders mean nothing to a virus.
More coordination and coherence, please. Otherwise folks might not only be confused about varying mandates, they might just tune them out all the more.
