Following is the Saline County Health Department's COVID-19 update for Wednesday.
This will be our final public update of "COVID by the Numbers."
Our staff would like to thank everyone who supported us as we navigated the uncharted waters of a global pandemic. The hours were long. The days were tough. Tears were shed at home and in the office.
We were often the bearers of bad news, the unwelcome phone call. We asked you to stay home, to miss work, to pull your kids out of school, to cancel your travel plans. We asked you to disrupt your life and to have faith that by doing so you were potentially saving lives.
We will never know how many were saved from sickness or spared from death by the actions you took to mitigate the spread, only the number of those who were not as fortunate.
Our public reporting is ending but our fight for the health of our community never will. It has, and continues to be, an honor to serve you.
For the health of all,
The Saline County Health Department
COVID Case Update for Saline County
Another 18 people have had COVID-19 positive test results reported to the Saline County Health Department since our last update on Wednesday.
The Salina Regional Health Center reports that 2 people are hospitalized due to COVID-19.
There are 34 known active cases of COVID-19 in Saline County.
We are ending our regular COVID reporting, and here's why
Today is the final edition of "COVID by the Numbers" from the Saline County Health Department. The Saline County COVID dashboard will be removed this week as well.
While our public reporting is ending, the County Health Department will continue to provide COVID services as needed and as we are able.
Since the pandemic began, much of our staffing, time, and resources have been diverted to combat the pandemic. Unfortunately, many long-standing and valuable programs provided by the Health Department have not received the attention they merit during that time. Our staff is looking forward to a renewed focus on programs and services unrelated to COVID.
The goal of public reporting was to give the public an accurate understanding of COVID in our county. Welcome changes like ubiquitous, reliable at-home testing means reported data is less reflective of the overall situation. Additionally, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has taken over all new COVID case investigations.
You can continue to find updated COVID information and data points on the websites below.