By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The Doniphan County Health Department has seen a spike in positive COVID-19 cases over the past couple weeks, mainly due to an outbreak at a northeast Kansas school.
County Health Director Sheryl Pierce says that the numbers the department have seen have climbed steadily over the last two weeks.
"We've essentially tripled our numbers in the past two weeks, as you notice two weeks ago we had 12 and then last Friday we had 34," Pierce tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "Most of those numbers are coming from an outbreak we have at USD-429 school district, Troy School District."
Pierce says that the school has seen a few teachers and other staff test positive, but most of the outbreak is in students 18 and under, many of them are asymptomatic.
Many schools in Kansas are also participating in the Stay to Learn program, meaning kids can stay in school if they test negative instead having to quarantine.
Pierce says the department has seen positive cases start to surge over the past couple weeks, this after a lull in cases over the summer.
Pierce adds the health departments biggest concern right now is the number of people still hesitant to get vaccinated.
"I was around the health department in 2009 when we had the H1N1, it was an influenza, somewhat of an outbreak, not like a pandemic, but H1N1 surfaced," Pierce says. "And at that point, parents were pleased, and they about broke down our door to get that vaccine."
Pierce says though she hasn't seen that demand with the COVID vaccine.
The Doniphan County Health Department offers all forms of the COVID vaccine. The department is hopeful that with the recent Pfizer approval for children ages five to eleven, more people will come get the shot.
Pierce says that the department has already started fielding calls, and has received doses of the vaccine for young children. She says the department has also begun planning another vaccination event, which it hopes to hold in the coming weeks.
"Now's a pretty good time because we're kind of between sports, I don't believe basketball has started yet, they're practicing but there's no basketball games yet, so that's what we're hoping to do," Pierce says. "And then hopefully the schools will allow us to come in and we can get more takers that way, we want to make getting the vaccine as easy and accessible to these parents and children as we can."