Health department announces first COVID-19 outbreak in Douglas County; 4 infected at same business – Lawrence Journal-World

photo by: Kevin Anderson/Journal-World File Photo

The Lawrence-Douglas County health department's home at the Community Health Facility, 200 Maine St., is pictured in this file photo from July 2010.

Story updated at 1:33 p.m. Monday

Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health has announced the first COVID-19 outbreak in the county.

Four individuals were infected at the same business, which the health department said it did not identify because of patient privacy restrictions. The situation met the definition of an outbreak because there were more than two cases with the same identified source of exposure, and those infected do not reside in the same household.

Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health said in a Friday news release that it was confident it has communicated with everyone in the affected business and worked to identify close contacts of those who were affected. The health department said it thought the business followed proper guidelines including structuring activity to keep groups small to minimize the circles of potential close contacts.

Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health was able to offer testing to symptomatic and asymptomatic people at the business who were identified as being close contacts to the affected individuals.

Spokesman George Diepenbrock said Monday that the business falls under the category of a private business, but he would not state the name or type of the organization due to privacy concerns.

In this case, we were confident in being able to identify all close contacts in working with the organization, and we did not want to risk identifying individuals by releasing the name or type of site of the outbreak, he wrote in an email to the Journal-World.

In the news release, Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health said it knew the news of an outbreak could be somewhat alarming.

With our community opening up more in recent weeks as we currently are under phase 3 (through at least June 21) of the reopening plan, this is a reminder the coronavirus is still present in our community and that we all need to continue to be vigilant, smart and safe in following recommended guidelines to contain the spread of the virus and protect those who might be most vulnerable, the release stated. This includes keeping your circle of contacts small, wearing a mask in public and maintain proper social distance from others outside of your home.

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Health department announces first COVID-19 outbreak in Douglas County; 4 infected at same business - Lawrence Journal-World