Law enforcement on the scene of the officer shooting -image courtesy KWCH

RUSH COUNTY&nbsp;–&nbsp;The Rush County Attorney reports that no charges will be filed against the Ness County sheriff’s deputy who shot and injured a suspect in a January officer involved shooting on Highway 96 in Rush County, according to a media release from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

After reviewing KBI investigative reports, Rush County Attorney Tony Rues determined the use of deadly force was justified, and he will not file charges against the sheriff’s deputy.

According to Rues, the officer involved shooting was reviewed pursuant to the statutory authority of K.S.A. 20-5222 use of force; defense of person; no duty to retreat and Kansas case law. Pursuant to K.S.A. 21-5222 (b) a person is justified in the use of deadly force if such person&nbsp;reasonably believes&nbsp;that&nbsp;such&nbsp;use of deadly force&nbsp;is&nbsp;necessary&nbsp;to&nbsp;prevent imminent death or&nbsp;great&nbsp;bodily harm to&nbsp;such&nbsp;person or a third&nbsp;person&nbsp;(emphasis added). The key words being reasonably believes. This is reinforced by case law in State v. McCullough, 293 Kan. 970, 975, 270 P. 3d 1142 (2012) and clarified in Graham v.&nbsp;Connor,&nbsp;490 U.S. 386 (1989).

Rues summarized his decision saying, “Considering the provided&nbsp;legal&nbsp;standard,&nbsp;the following facts are legally pertinent. The deputy&nbsp;was&nbsp;in pursuit of Timothy “Timmy” W. Kellebrew who was&nbsp;suspected&nbsp;of committing an aggravated robbery with a firearm of a Dollar General&nbsp;store.

&nbsp;Kellebrew's&nbsp;actions&nbsp;required law enforcement to engage in a dangerous&nbsp;high-speed&nbsp;pursuit of him. This&nbsp;not&nbsp;only&nbsp;endangered&nbsp;law&nbsp;enforcement but also other civilians&nbsp;using the&nbsp;highway.&nbsp;Kellebrew&nbsp;also&nbsp;wielded the firearm in attempting to gain access to the vehicle that he had forced off the&nbsp;highway. It is at that instance that the deputy fired his&nbsp;service&nbsp;weapon to prevent the same. The use of deadly force was justified. Therefore, no charges against the deputy will be filed.”

Kellebrew was charged in Lane County district court for his alleged involvement in the robbery at the Dollar General Store in Dighton. Charges are pending for suspected crimes that occurred in Rush County.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1587055056088.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Law enforcement on the scene of the officer shooting -image courtesy KWCHRUSH COUNTY&nbsp;–&nbsp;The Rush County Attorney reports that no charges will be filed against the Ness County sheriff’s deputy who shot and injured a suspect in a January officer involved shooting on Highway 96 in Rush County, according to a media release from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.After reviewing KBI investigative reports, Rush County Attorney Tony Rues determined the use of deadly force was justified, and he will not file charges against the sheriff’s deputy.According to Rues, the officer involved shooting was reviewed pursuant to the statutory authority of K.S.A. 20-5222 use of force; defense of person; no duty to retreat and Kansas case law. Pursuant to K.S.A. 21-5222 (b) a person is justified in the use of deadly force if such person&nbsp;reasonably believes&nbsp;that&nbsp;such&nbsp;use of deadly force&nbsp;is&nbsp;necessary&nbsp;to&nbsp;prevent imminent death or&nbsp;great&nbsp;bodily harm to&nbsp;such&nbsp;person or a third&nbsp;person&nbsp;(emphasis added). The key words being reasonably believes. This is reinforced by case law in State v. McCullough, 293 Kan. 970, 975, 270 P. 3d 1142 (2012) and clarified in Graham v.&nbsp;Connor,&nbsp;490 U.S. 386 (1989).<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1587056235747.png" alt="Kellebrew is being held in Ford County" />
 <figcaption>Kellebrew is being held in Ford County</figcaption>
 </figure>Rues summarized his decision saying, “Considering the provided&nbsp;legal&nbsp;standard,&nbsp;the following facts are legally pertinent. The deputy&nbsp;was&nbsp;in pursuit of Timothy “Timmy” W. Kellebrew who was&nbsp;suspected&nbsp;of committing an aggravated robbery with a firearm of a Dollar General&nbsp;store.&nbsp;Kellebrew's&nbsp;actions&nbsp;required law enforcement to engage in a dangerous&nbsp;high-speed&nbsp;pursuit of him. This&nbsp;not&nbsp;only&nbsp;endangered&nbsp;law&nbsp;enforcement but also other civilians&nbsp;using the&nbsp;highway.&nbsp;Kellebrew&nbsp;also&nbsp;wielded the firearm in attempting to gain access to the vehicle that he had forced off the&nbsp;highway. It is at that instance that the deputy fired his&nbsp;service&nbsp;weapon to prevent the same. The use of deadly force was justified. Therefore, no charges against the deputy will be filed.”Kellebrew was charged in Lane County district court for his alleged involvement in the robbery at the Dollar General Store in Dighton. Charges are pending for suspected crimes that occurred in Rush County.

KBI: No charges against deputy in officer involved shooting

SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a shooting and have made an arrest.

Just after 12:10 a.m. Wednesday, police responded to a drive-by shooting call in the 1400 block of North Poplar in Wichita, according to officer Charley Davidson.

At the approximate same time, a police Sergeant working off duty at Wesley Medical Center advised of a walk-in shooting at the hospital.

A 31-year-old woman arrived at the hospital with a minor graze wound to the top of her head.&nbsp; 

A man identified as 30-year-old Denoveous Adams of Wichita, brought her to the hospital in a Jeep Liberty, according to Davidson.

When Adams saw the police Sergeant, he grabbed a handgun from the Jeep and fled on foot.&nbsp; Officers arriving in the area arrested Adams and also recovered the gun.

During the investigation, officers located multiple shell casings in the 1400 block and 1600 block of North Poplar.&nbsp;

Investigators are also working to determine the circumstances of what occurred.&nbsp; A lack of all cooperation in this investigation has affected investigators from learning all the details of this case.&nbsp; 

&nbsp;Adams is being held for possession of a firearm by a felon. He has previously been arrested and convicted of charges that include aggravated robbery and robbery.

This was not a random incident, according to Davidson.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1586967270701.png" alt="Adams photo Sedgwick County" />
 <figcaption>Adams photo Sedgwick County</figcaption>
 </figure>SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a shooting and have made an arrest.Just after 12:10 a.m. Wednesday, police responded to a drive-by shooting call in the 1400 block of North Poplar in Wichita, according to officer Charley Davidson.At the approximate same time, a police Sergeant working off duty at Wesley Medical Center advised of a walk-in shooting at the hospital.A 31-year-old woman arrived at the hospital with a minor graze wound to the top of her head.&nbsp; A man identified as 30-year-old Denoveous Adams of Wichita, brought her to the hospital in a Jeep Liberty, according to Davidson.When Adams saw the police Sergeant, he grabbed a handgun from the Jeep and fled on foot.&nbsp; Officers arriving in the area arrested Adams and also recovered the gun.During the investigation, officers located multiple shell casings in the 1400 block and 1600 block of North Poplar.&nbsp;Investigators are also working to determine the circumstances of what occurred.&nbsp; A lack of all cooperation in this investigation has affected investigators from learning all the details of this case.&nbsp; &nbsp;Adams is being held for possession of a firearm by a felon. He has previously been arrested and convicted of charges that include aggravated robbery and robbery.This was not a random incident, according to Davidson.

Police: Kan. felon brought shooting victim to hospital

KANSAS CITY (AP) — Smithfield Foods will temporarily close its plants in Cudahy, Wisconsin, and Martin City, Missouri, because of the coronavirus pandemic. (Martin City is a neighborhood of Kansas City located along the Missouri and Kansas border in Jackson County.)

The plant near Milwaukee will be closed for two weeks while the facility in Missouri is closed indefinitely. The Missouri plant receives raw material from the company's Sioux Falls, South Dakota, facility, which is also closed.

Smithfield Foods has reported 518 infections in employees in Sioux Falls and another 126 in people connected to them.

Smithfield said a small number of employees at the Wisconsin and Missouri plants have tested positive for COVID-19.

The company is based in Smithfield, Virginia and employs over 1,000 workers at the Cudahy plant.

John Eiden, president of the United Food &amp; Commercial Workers Union Local 1473, raised concerns that the company wasn’t doing enough to protect workers in a letter to Smithfield’s human resources department, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/south/news/cudahy/2020/04/15/coronavirus-milwaukee-patrick-cudahy-plant-close-2-weeks/5141310002/">Journal Sentinel&nbsp;</a>reported.

The March 26 letter said two employees have tested positive for coronavirus, but not all union members were informed of the second case.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1587045646390.png" alt="Photo courtesy Smithfield foods" />
 <figcaption>Photo courtesy Smithfield foods</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY (AP) — Smithfield Foods will temporarily close its plants in Cudahy, Wisconsin, and Martin City, Missouri, because of the coronavirus pandemic. (Martin City is a neighborhood of Kansas City located along the Missouri and Kansas border in Jackson County.)The plant near Milwaukee will be closed for two weeks while the facility in Missouri is closed indefinitely. The Missouri plant receives raw material from the company's Sioux Falls, South Dakota, facility, which is also closed.Smithfield Foods has reported 518 infections in employees in Sioux Falls and another 126 in people connected to them.Smithfield said a small number of employees at the Wisconsin and Missouri plants have tested positive for COVID-19.The company is based in Smithfield, Virginia and employs over 1,000 workers at the Cudahy plant.John Eiden, president of the United Food &amp; Commercial Workers Union Local 1473, raised concerns that the company wasn’t doing enough to protect workers in a letter to Smithfield’s human resources department, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/south/news/cudahy/2020/04/15/coronavirus-milwaukee-patrick-cudahy-plant-close-2-weeks/5141310002/">Journal Sentinel&nbsp;</a>reported.The March 26 letter said two employees have tested positive for coronavirus, but not all union members were informed of the second case.

Smithfield foods closes plants in Kansas City and Wisconsin

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly faced increased pressure Wednesday from the Republican-controlled Legislature to outline plans for reopening the state’s economy even as she extended a statewide stay-at-home order and prepared to send money to hospitals struggling in the coronavirus pandemic.

Kelly is keeping her&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/425a488fcf8f16dfb0d7e06a9293b1ff">shelter-in-place directive active&nbsp;</a>for all 2.9 million Kansas residents until May 3, an additional two weeks. It initially took effect March 30 and was to stay in place until Sunday, but Kelly said the coronavirus outbreak might not peak until April 29. The state saw a 4.8% increase Wednesday in confirmed coronavirus cases, to 1,494, and the number of reported COVID-19 related deaths jumped to 76, up seven from the day before.

The Democratic governor called a teleconference meeting with top legislative leaders to get their permission to purchase another $10 million in personal protective equipment. She also informed lawmakers of plans to provide $17 million in state funds to hospitals to offset losses until aid promised by the U.S. government starts flowing.

But more than 40 Republican legislators&nbsp;<a href="https://apdocs.inside.ap.org/documents/150873-letter-to-kelly-04-14-20.html" target="_blank">demanded in a letter</a>&nbsp;that she provide a detailed plan for allowing businesses to reopen, saying “there is no excuse for us not to be prepared to rebuild.” And House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, admonished Kelly that the aid to hospitals helps only one segment of the economy.

“We can’t help out the whole economy — I’m not saying we can — but the one thing we can do is to get people back to work, get people back to making money, being able to pay their bills,” Hawkins said.

Kelly already faces strong criticism from Republicans for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/9cc005f93f1daa0edd5fcfbc581351e5">limiting in-person worship services</a>&nbsp;and religious gatherings to 10 or fewer people, which GOP leaders see as restricting religious freedom.

She’s also under fire from Republicans because&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/d0f463f9d78d0d9facb06d9a21c20d96">a surge in unemployment claims</a>&nbsp;from jobless workers has overwhelmed the state Department of Labor’s phone lines and website. Kelly said Wednesday that 150 workers are handling calls, up from 21 when the coronavirus outbreak began in Kansas in early March, and a team of 30 people is working around-the-clock on the processing system.

Kelly said she’s working on a plan to loosen restrictions, which could be done regionally or industry-by-industry. But she said schools won’t reopen until at least August, large gatherings may be banned for some time and the state won’t “throw the doors wide open.”

“Life as we’ve known it won’t be the same for quite a while,” Kelly told legislative leaders. “Until we have a vaccine that works, we’re going to probably have to be dealing with some mitigation effort.”

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness and death.

Black Kansans have been disproportionately affected. They’ve had 114 cases per 100,000 residents, compared to 33 cases per 100,000 for white residents as of Wednesday. Even more startling is the difference in death rates: 11.5 per 100,000 for black residents, compared to just 1.4 for white residents. However, the information is incomplete, with missing racial data for 23% of cases and 12% of deaths.

Kelly described the trend as “alarming” in a written statement and said it “points to, among other things, inequalities in healthcare.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1586999622631.png" alt="Governor Laura Kelly answers questions during Wednesday's press conference where she extended the stay-at-home order to May 3" />
 <figcaption>Governor Laura Kelly answers questions during Wednesday's press conference where she extended the stay-at-home order to May 3</figcaption>
 </figure>By JOHN HANNA and HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTHTOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly faced increased pressure Wednesday from the Republican-controlled Legislature to outline plans for reopening the state’s economy even as she extended a statewide stay-at-home order and prepared to send money to hospitals struggling in the coronavirus pandemic.Kelly is keeping her&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/425a488fcf8f16dfb0d7e06a9293b1ff">shelter-in-place directive active&nbsp;</a>for all 2.9 million Kansas residents until May 3, an additional two weeks. It initially took effect March 30 and was to stay in place until Sunday, but Kelly said the coronavirus outbreak might not peak until April 29. The state saw a 4.8% increase Wednesday in confirmed coronavirus cases, to 1,494, and the number of reported COVID-19 related deaths jumped to 76, up seven from the day before.The Democratic governor called a teleconference meeting with top legislative leaders to get their permission to purchase another $10 million in personal protective equipment. She also informed lawmakers of plans to provide $17 million in state funds to hospitals to offset losses until aid promised by the U.S. government starts flowing.But more than 40 Republican legislators&nbsp;<a href="https://apdocs.inside.ap.org/documents/150873-letter-to-kelly-04-14-20.html" target="_blank">demanded in a letter</a>&nbsp;that she provide a detailed plan for allowing businesses to reopen, saying “there is no excuse for us not to be prepared to rebuild.” And House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, admonished Kelly that the aid to hospitals helps only one segment of the economy.“We can’t help out the whole economy — I’m not saying we can — but the one thing we can do is to get people back to work, get people back to making money, being able to pay their bills,” Hawkins said.Kelly already faces strong criticism from Republicans for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/9cc005f93f1daa0edd5fcfbc581351e5">limiting in-person worship services</a>&nbsp;and religious gatherings to 10 or fewer people, which GOP leaders see as restricting religious freedom.She’s also under fire from Republicans because&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/d0f463f9d78d0d9facb06d9a21c20d96">a surge in unemployment claims</a>&nbsp;from jobless workers has overwhelmed the state Department of Labor’s phone lines and website. Kelly said Wednesday that 150 workers are handling calls, up from 21 when the coronavirus outbreak began in Kansas in early March, and a team of 30 people is working around-the-clock on the processing system.Kelly said she’s working on a plan to loosen restrictions, which could be done regionally or industry-by-industry. But she said schools won’t reopen until at least August, large gatherings may be banned for some time and the state won’t “throw the doors wide open.”“Life as we’ve known it won’t be the same for quite a while,” Kelly told legislative leaders. “Until we have a vaccine that works, we’re going to probably have to be dealing with some mitigation effort.”For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness and death.Black Kansans have been disproportionately affected. They’ve had 114 cases per 100,000 residents, compared to 33 cases per 100,000 for white residents as of Wednesday. Even more startling is the difference in death rates: 11.5 per 100,000 for black residents, compared to just 1.4 for white residents. However, the information is incomplete, with missing racial data for 23% of cases and 12% of deaths.Kelly described the trend as “alarming” in a written statement and said it “points to, among other things, inequalities in healthcare.”____

Kansas governor squeezed on economy but extends restrictions

SHAWNEE MISSION, Kan. (AP) — A Shawnee Mission elementary teacher has been charged with a child sex crime, authorities in northeastern Kansas said.

Kim Zier, 63, who worked as a fifth-grade teacher at Pawnee Elementary School before being placed on leave, is charged in Johnson County District Court with one count of aggravated indecent liberties involving a child.

Investigators said he is accused of lewdly fondling or touching a child under the age of 14 on Jan. 28. Zier was arrested Monday and charged the same day. A bond reduction motion filed by Zier’s attorney said Zier has been a teacher for 41 years, serving 31 of those years with the Shawnee Mission School District.

School district spokesman David Smith confirmed that Zier had been placed on administrative leave.

“We take student safety very seriously, and have fully cooperated with the police in their investigation,” Smith said in an email.

Zier is scheduled to appear in court again April 22.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1586962385425.png" alt="Zier photo Johnson County" />
 <figcaption>Zier photo Johnson County</figcaption>
 </figure>SHAWNEE MISSION, Kan. (AP) — A Shawnee Mission elementary teacher has been charged with a child sex crime, authorities in northeastern Kansas said.Kim Zier, 63, who worked as a fifth-grade teacher at Pawnee Elementary School before being placed on leave, is charged in Johnson County District Court with one count of aggravated indecent liberties involving a child.Investigators said he is accused of lewdly fondling or touching a child under the age of 14 on Jan. 28. Zier was arrested Monday and charged the same day. A bond reduction motion filed by Zier’s attorney said Zier has been a teacher for 41 years, serving 31 of those years with the Shawnee Mission School District.School district spokesman David Smith confirmed that Zier had been placed on administrative leave.“We take student safety very seriously, and have fully cooperated with the police in their investigation,” Smith said in an email.Zier is scheduled to appear in court again April 22.

63-year-old Kan. teacher charged with child sex crime

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he’s prepared to announce new guidelines allowing some states to quickly ease up on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/fa1fda126fe191425abc20ab461dfbe7">social distancing</a>&nbsp;even as business leaders told him they need more&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/c335958b1f8f6a37b19b421bc7759722">coronavirus testing</a>&nbsp;and personal protective equipment before people can safely go back to work.

The industry executives cautioned Trump that the return to normalcy will be anything but swift.

The new guidelines, expected to be announced Thursday, are aimed at clearing the way for an easing of restrictions in areas with low transmission of the coronavirus, while keeping them in place in harder-hit places. The ultimate decisions will remain with governors.

“We’ll be opening some states much sooner than others,” Trump said Wednesday.

But in a round of calls with business leaders earlier in the day, Trump was warned that a dramatic increasing in testing and wider availability of protective equipment will be necessary for the safe restoration of their operations.

The new guidelines come as the federal government envisions a gradual recovery from the virus, in which disruptive mitigation measures may be needed in some places at least until&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/76b614811eef32955180c8260188bc24">a vaccine</a>&nbsp;is available — a milestone unlikely to be reached until next year.

Trump said at his daily briefing that data indicates the U.S. is “past the peak” of the COVID-19 epidemic, clearing the way for his plans to roll out guidelines to begin to “reopen” the country.

He called the latest data “encouraging,” saying the numbers have “put us in a very strong position to finalize guidelines for states on reopening the country.”

<a href="https://apnews.com/ad29c4d8fd12aeb00bd05ad96708f325">Dr. Deborah Birx</a>, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, added that data from across the country showed the nation “improving” but that Americans had to recommit to social distancing to keep up the positive momentum.

She said nine states have fewer than 1,000 cases and just a few dozen new cases per day. She said those would likely be the first to see a lifting in social distancing restrictions at the direction of their governors under the guidelines set to be released Thursday.

Birx said the White House was particularly concerned about Rhode Island, noting it is now seeing a surge in cases from the Boston metro area after seeing a spike several weeks ago from cases from New York.

Trump consulted dozens of high-profile CEOs, union officials and other executives via conference calls Wednesday.

He received a mixed message from the industry leaders. They, too, said they want to get the economy going but had worries about how to safely do so.

In a tweet midway through Trump’s round of conference calls with the executives, the president said the participants were “all-in on getting America back to work, and soon.”

But participants in a morning call that included dozens of leading American companies raised concerns about the testing issue, according to one participant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussion.

Another person who participated in Wednesday’s calls said it was stressed to Trump that expansion of testing and contact tracing was crucial, as well as guidelines for best practices on reopening businesses in phases or in one fell swoop.

The participant said those on the call noted to the administration that there was about to be a massive rush on personal protective equipment. Many businesses that are now shuttered will need the protective equipment to keep their employees and customers safe.

Trump was told “the economy will look very different and operations will look very different,” one participant said.

Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was among several representatives from major sports leagues to speak with Trump. During a Fox News Channel interview ahead of the calls, he credited the president with gathering some of the “best of the best” to help shape his approach on reopening the economy. Still, Cuban did not embrace Trump’s push to reopen parts of the economy May 1.

“This is such a moving target that I think the biggest mistake we can make is rush to a decision,” said Cuban, who previously had been critical of Trump’s response to the pandemic. “But I’m going to help him in every way I can, whatever he needs me to do.”

The panel, which Trump dubbed the new Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups, also could help give Trump a measure of cover. If cases surge once restrictions are lifted, as many experts have warned, Trump will be able to tell the public he didn’t act alone and the nation’s top minds — from manufacturing to defense to technology — helped shape the plan.

Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, who participated in one of the calls with Trump, said there was also discussion about tax relief as well as “making sure that people are optimistic about the economy and they feel safe coming back to work.”

“I think you’ll see steps to reopen the country at different rates in different states in the not too distant future,” Nolan said.

The launch of the council was not without hiccups.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka didn’t know until he heard his name announced in the Rose Garden on Tuesday that he would be part of the advisory group, according to Carolyn Bobb, a spokeswoman for the union.

“We were not asked,” Bobb said in an email. It was “just announced.”

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Trump has appointed some “smart people” to his task force who could offer state leaders helpful guidelines as they negotiate the way forward.

“There are certain roles that only the federal government can play and should play, but I think the governors are going to make their own decisions within those recommended guidelines,” Hogan said.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1587031848543.png" alt="President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue during Wednesday's Coronavirus Task Force briefing in the White House Rose Garden." />
 <figcaption>President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue during Wednesday's Coronavirus Task Force briefing in the White House Rose Garden.</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he’s prepared to announce new guidelines allowing some states to quickly ease up on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/fa1fda126fe191425abc20ab461dfbe7">social distancing</a>&nbsp;even as business leaders told him they need more&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/c335958b1f8f6a37b19b421bc7759722">coronavirus testing</a>&nbsp;and personal protective equipment before people can safely go back to work.The industry executives cautioned Trump that the return to normalcy will be anything but swift.The new guidelines, expected to be announced Thursday, are aimed at clearing the way for an easing of restrictions in areas with low transmission of the coronavirus, while keeping them in place in harder-hit places. The ultimate decisions will remain with governors.“We’ll be opening some states much sooner than others,” Trump said Wednesday.But in a round of calls with business leaders earlier in the day, Trump was warned that a dramatic increasing in testing and wider availability of protective equipment will be necessary for the safe restoration of their operations.The new guidelines come as the federal government envisions a gradual recovery from the virus, in which disruptive mitigation measures may be needed in some places at least until&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/76b614811eef32955180c8260188bc24">a vaccine</a>&nbsp;is available — a milestone unlikely to be reached until next year.Trump said at his daily briefing that data indicates the U.S. is “past the peak” of the COVID-19 epidemic, clearing the way for his plans to roll out guidelines to begin to “reopen” the country.He called the latest data “encouraging,” saying the numbers have “put us in a very strong position to finalize guidelines for states on reopening the country.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1586989213442.png" alt="Dr. Deborah Birx, the Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator answered questions at Wednesday's briefing in the White House rose garden." />
 <figcaption>Dr. Deborah Birx, the Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator answered questions at Wednesday's briefing in the White House rose garden.</figcaption>
 </figure><a href="https://apnews.com/ad29c4d8fd12aeb00bd05ad96708f325">Dr. Deborah Birx</a>, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, added that data from across the country showed the nation “improving” but that Americans had to recommit to social distancing to keep up the positive momentum.She said nine states have fewer than 1,000 cases and just a few dozen new cases per day. She said those would likely be the first to see a lifting in social distancing restrictions at the direction of their governors under the guidelines set to be released Thursday.Birx said the White House was particularly concerned about Rhode Island, noting it is now seeing a surge in cases from the Boston metro area after seeing a spike several weeks ago from cases from New York.Trump consulted dozens of high-profile CEOs, union officials and other executives via conference calls Wednesday.He received a mixed message from the industry leaders. They, too, said they want to get the economy going but had worries about how to safely do so.In a tweet midway through Trump’s round of conference calls with the executives, the president said the participants were “all-in on getting America back to work, and soon.”But participants in a morning call that included dozens of leading American companies raised concerns about the testing issue, according to one participant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussion.Another person who participated in Wednesday’s calls said it was stressed to Trump that expansion of testing and contact tracing was crucial, as well as guidelines for best practices on reopening businesses in phases or in one fell swoop.The participant said those on the call noted to the administration that there was about to be a massive rush on personal protective equipment. Many businesses that are now shuttered will need the protective equipment to keep their employees and customers safe.Trump was told “the economy will look very different and operations will look very different,” one participant said.Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was among several representatives from major sports leagues to speak with Trump. During a Fox News Channel interview ahead of the calls, he credited the president with gathering some of the “best of the best” to help shape his approach on reopening the economy. Still, Cuban did not embrace Trump’s push to reopen parts of the economy May 1.“This is such a moving target that I think the biggest mistake we can make is rush to a decision,” said Cuban, who previously had been critical of Trump’s response to the pandemic. “But I’m going to help him in every way I can, whatever he needs me to do.”The panel, which Trump dubbed the new Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups, also could help give Trump a measure of cover. If cases surge once restrictions are lifted, as many experts have warned, Trump will be able to tell the public he didn’t act alone and the nation’s top minds — from manufacturing to defense to technology — helped shape the plan.Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, who participated in one of the calls with Trump, said there was also discussion about tax relief as well as “making sure that people are optimistic about the economy and they feel safe coming back to work.”“I think you’ll see steps to reopen the country at different rates in different states in the not too distant future,” Nolan said.The launch of the council was not without hiccups.AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka didn’t know until he heard his name announced in the Rose Garden on Tuesday that he would be part of the advisory group, according to Carolyn Bobb, a spokeswoman for the union.“We were not asked,” Bobb said in an email. It was “just announced.”Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Trump has appointed some “smart people” to his task force who could offer state leaders helpful guidelines as they negotiate the way forward.“There are certain roles that only the federal government can play and should play, but I think the governors are going to make their own decisions within those recommended guidelines,” Hogan said.___

Trump says new guidelines aim to lift some restrictions

In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations.

President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day, Jan. 20. But by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and expert estimates based on&nbsp;<a href="http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9a9b-fea8db1a8f51" target="_blank">retrospective infection data</a>.

That delay from Jan. 14 to Jan. 20 was neither the first mistake made by Chinese officials at all levels in confronting the outbreak, nor the longest lag, as governments around the world have dragged their feet for weeks and even months in addressing the virus.

But the delay by the first country to face the new coronavirus came at a critical time — the beginning of the outbreak. China’s attempt to walk a line between alerting the public and avoiding panic set the stage for a pandemic that has infected almost 2 million people and taken more than 126,000 lives.

“This is tremendous,” said Zuo-Feng Zhang, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “If they took action six days earlier, there would have been much fewer patients and medical facilities would have been sufficient. We might have avoided the collapse of Wuhan’s medical system.”

Other experts noted that the Chinese government may have waited on warning the public to stave off hysteria, and that it did act quickly in private during that time.

But the six-day delay by China’s leaders in Beijing came on top of almost two weeks during which the national Center for Disease Control did not register any cases from local officials, internal bulletins obtained by the AP confirm. Yet during that time, from Jan. 5 to Jan. 17, hundreds of patients were appearing in hospitals not just in Wuhan but across the country.

It’s uncertain whether it was local officials who failed to report cases or national officials who failed to record them. It’s also not clear exactly what officials knew at the time in Wuhan, which only opened back up last week with restrictions after its quarantine.

But what is clear, experts say, is that China’s rigid controls on information, bureaucratic hurdles and a reluctance to send bad news up the chain of command muffled early warnings.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/6f2e666485e9abae4bb112251eca77be">The punishment of eight doctors for “rumor-mongering,”</a>&nbsp;broadcast on national television on Jan. 2, sent a chill through the city’s hospitals.

“Doctors in Wuhan were afraid,” said Dali Yang, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Chicago. “It was truly intimidation of an entire profession.”

Without these internal reports, it took the first case outside China, in Thailand on Jan. 13, to galvanize leaders in Beijing into recognizing the possible pandemic before them. It was only then that they launched a nationwide plan to find cases — distributing CDC-sanctioned test kits, easing the criteria for confirming cases and ordering health officials to screen patients, all without telling the public.

The Chinese government has repeatedly denied suppressing information in the early days, saying it immediately reported the outbreak to the World Health Organization.

“Those accusing China of lacking transparency and openness are unfair,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Wednesday when asked about the AP story.

The documents show that the head of China’s National Health Commission, Ma Xiaowei, laid out a grim assessment of the situation on Jan. 14 in a confidential teleconference with provincial health officials. A memo states that the teleconference was held to convey instructions on the coronavirus from President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, but does not specify what those instructions were.

“The epidemic situation is still severe and complex, the most severe challenge since SARS in 2003, and is likely to develop into a major public health event,” the memo cites Ma as saying.

The National Health Commission is the top medical agency in the country. In a faxed statement, the Commission said it had organized the teleconference because of the case reported in Thailand and the possibility of the virus spreading during New Year travel. It added that China had published information on the outbreak in an “open, transparent, responsible and timely manner,” in accordance with “important instructions” repeatedly issued by President Xi.

The documents come from an anonymous source in the medical field who did not want to be named for fear of retribution. The AP confirmed the contents with two other sources in public health familiar with the teleconference. Some of the memo’s contents also appeared in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/fkdt/202002/e5e8a132ef8b42d484e6df53d4d110c1.shtml" target="_blank">a public notice about the teleconference</a>, stripped of key details and published in February.

Under a section titled “sober understanding of the situation,” the memo said that “clustered cases suggest that human-to-human transmission is possible.” It singled out the case in Thailand, saying that the situation had “changed significantly” because of the possible spread of the virus abroad.

“With the coming of the Spring Festival, many people will be traveling, and the risk of transmission and spread is high,” the memo continued. “All localities must prepare for and respond to a pandemic.”

In the memo, Ma demanded officials unite around Xi and made clear that political considerations and social stability were key priorities during the long lead-up to China’s two biggest political meetings of the year in March. While the documents do not spell out why Chinese leaders waited six days to make their concerns public, the meetings may be one reason.

“The imperatives for social stability, for not rocking the boat before these important Party congresses is pretty strong,” says Daniel Mattingly, a scholar of Chinese politics at Yale. “My guess is, they wanted to let it play out a little more and see what happened.”

In response to the teleconference, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing initiated the highest-level emergency response internally, level one, on Jan. 15. It assigned top CDC leaders to 14 working groups tasked with getting funds, training health workers, collecting data, doing field investigations and supervising laboratories, an internal CDC notice shows. The memo directed Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, to begin temperature checks at airports, bus and train stations, and cut down on large public gatherings.

The National Health Commission also distributed a 63-page set of instructions to provincial health officials, obtained by the AP. The instructions ordered health officials nationwide to identify suspected cases, hospitals to open fever clinics, and doctors and nurses to don protective gear. They were marked “internal” — “not to be spread on the internet,” “not to be publicly disclosed.”

In public, however, officials continued to downplay the threat, pointing to the 41 cases public at the time.

“We have reached the latest understanding that the risk of sustained human-to-human transmission is low,” Li Qun, the head of the China CDC’s emergency center,&nbsp;<a href="http://tv.cctv.com/2020/01/15/VIDEVPaxZBFtDLGUA6mk5PW2200115.shtml" target="_blank">told Chinese state television on Jan. 15</a>. That was the same day Li was appointed leader of a group preparing emergency plans for the level one response, a CDC notice shows.

On Jan. 20, President Xi issued his first public comments on the virus, saying the outbreak “must be taken seriously” and every possible measure pursued. A leading Chinese epidemiologist, Zhong Nanshan,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/14d7dcffa205d9022fa9ea593bb2a8c5">announced for the first time that the virus was transmissible from person to person on national television.</a>

If the public had been warned a week earlier to take actions such as social distancing, mask wearing and travel restrictions, cases could have been cut by up to two-thirds,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.03.20029843v3.full.pdf" target="_blank">one paper later found</a>. An earlier warning could have saved lives, said Zhang, the doctor in Los Angeles.

However, other health experts said the government took decisive action in private given the information available to them.

“They may not have said the right thing, but they were doing the right thing,” said Ray Yip, the retired founding head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s office in China. “On the 20th, they sounded the alarm for the whole country, which is not an unreasonable delay.”

If health officials raise the alarm prematurely, it can damage their credibility — “like crying wolf” —and cripple their ability to mobilize the public, said Benjamin Cowley, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong.

The delay may support accusations by President Donald Trump that the Chinese government’s secrecy held back the world’s response to the virus. However, even the public announcement on Jan. 20 left the U.S. nearly two months to prepare for the pandemic.

During those months,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/6a8f85aad99607f313cca6ab1398e04d">Trump ignored the warnings of his own staff and dismissed the disease as nothing to worry about</a>, while the government&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/090600c299a8cf07f5b44d92534856bc">failed to bolster medical supplies</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/c335958b1f8f6a37b19b421bc7759722">deployed flawed testing kits</a>. Leaders across the world turned a blind eye to the outbreak, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling for a strategy of “herd immunity” —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/193a0cfe074685144ade169084a68255">before falling ill himself.</a>&nbsp;Brazilian President&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/b21a296383694c6726d03e027134daf1">Jair Bolsonaro sneered at what he called “a little cold.”</a>

The early story of the pandemic in China shows missed opportunities at every step, the documents and AP interviews reveal. Under Xi, China’s most authoritarian leader in decades, increasing political repression has made officials more hesitant to report cases without a clear green light from the top.

“It really increased the stakes for officials, which made them reluctant to step out of line,” said Mattingly, the Yale professor. “It made it harder for people at the local level to report bad information.”

Doctors and nurses in Wuhan&nbsp;<a href="http://archive.vn/OLdHs#selection-871.108-890.0" target="_blank">told Chinese media</a>&nbsp;there were plenty of signs that the coronavirus could be transmitted between people as early as late December. Patients who had never been to the suspected source of the virus, the Huanan Seafood Market, were infected. Medical workers started falling ill.

But officials obstructed medical staff who tried to report such cases. They set tight criteria for confirming cases, where patients not only had to test positive, but samples had to be sent to Beijing and sequenced. They required staff to report to supervisors before sending information higher,&nbsp;<a href="https://archive.is/SYydC" target="_blank">Chinese media reports show.</a>&nbsp;And they punished doctors for warning about the disease.

As a result,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/b981ea744ee2a25f89c5abb0e8c1e92f">no new cases were reported for almost two weeks from Jan. 5</a>, even as officials gathered in Wuhan for Hubei province’s two biggest political meetings of the year, internal China CDC bulletins confirm.

During this period, teams of experts dispatched to Wuhan by Beijing said they failed to find clear signs of danger and human-to-human transmission.

“China has many years of disease control, there’s absolutely no chance that this will spread widely because of Spring Festival travel,” the head of the first expert team, Xu Jianguo,&nbsp;<a href="https://takungpao.com/news/232108/2020/0105/400593.html#10006-weixin-1-52626-6b3bffd01fdde4900130bc5a2751b6d1" target="_blank">told Takungpao, a Hong Kong paper,</a>&nbsp;on Jan. 6. He added there was “no evidence of human-to-human transmission” and that the threat from the virus was low.

The second expert team, dispatched on Jan. 8, similarly failed to unearth any clear signs of human-to-human transmission. Yet during their stay, more than half a dozen doctors and nurses had already fallen ill with the virus,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316" target="_blank">a retrospective China CDC study published in the New England Journal of Medicine would later show.</a>

The teams looked for patients with severe pneumonia, missing those with milder symptoms. They also narrowed the search to those who had visited the seafood market — which was in retrospect a mistake, said Cowling, the Hong Kong epidemiologist, who flew to Beijing to review the cases in late January.

In the weeks after the severity of the epidemic became clear, some experts accused Wuhan officials of intentionally hiding cases.

“I always suspected it was human-to-human transmissible,” said Wang Guangfa, the leader of the second expert team, in a Mar. 15 post on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform. He fell ill with the virus soon after returning to Beijing on Jan. 16.

Wuhan’s then-mayor, Zhou Xianwang, blamed national regulations for the secrecy.

“As a local government official, I could disclose information only after being authorized,” Zhou told state media in late January. “A lot of people didn’t understand this.”

As a result, top Chinese officials appear to have been left in the dark.

“The CDC acted sluggishly, assuming all was fine,” said a state health expert, who declined to be named out of fear of retribution. “If we started to do something a week or two earlier, things could have been so much different.”

It wasn’t just Wuhan. In Shenzhen in southern China, hundreds of miles away, a team led by microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung used their own test kits to confirm that six members of a family of seven had the virus on Jan. 12.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-03-09/exclusive-qa-with-hong-kongs-yuen-kwok-yung-who-helped-confirm-coronaviruss-human-spread-101526079.html" target="_blank">In an interview with Caixin</a>, a respected Chinese finance magazine, Yuen said he informed CDC branches “of all levels,” including Beijing. But internal CDC numbers did not reflect Yuen’s report, the bulletins show.

When the Thai case was reported, health authorities finally drew up an internal plan to systematically identify, isolate, test, and treat all cases of the new coronavirus nationwide.

Wuhan’s case count began to climb immediately — four on Jan. 17, then 17 the next day and 136 the day after. Across the country, dozens of cases began to surface, in some cases among patients who were infected earlier but had not yet been tested. In Zhejiang, for example,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.zjwjw.gov.cn/art/2020/1/21/art_1202101_41786033.html" target="_blank">a man hospitalized on Jan. 4 was only isolated on Jan. 17 and confirmed positive on Jan. 21.&nbsp;</a>In Shenzhen, the patients Yuen discovered on Jan. 12 were finally recorded as confirmed cases on Jan. 19.

The elite Peking Union Medical College Hospital held an emergency meeting on Jan. 18, instructing staff to adopt stringent isolation — still before Xi’s public warning. A health expert told AP that on Jan. 19, she toured a hospital built after the SARS outbreak, where medical workers had furiously prepared an entire building with hundreds of beds for pneumonia patients.

“Everybody in the country in the infectious disease field knew something was going on,” she said, declining to be named to avoid disrupting sensitive government consultations. “They were anticipating it.”

By Associated PressIn the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations.President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day, Jan. 20. But by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and expert estimates based on&nbsp;<a href="http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/en/article/id/e53946e2-c6c4-41e9-9a9b-fea8db1a8f51" target="_blank">retrospective infection data</a>.Six days.That delay from Jan. 14 to Jan. 20 was neither the first mistake made by Chinese officials at all levels in confronting the outbreak, nor the longest lag, as governments around the world have dragged their feet for weeks and even months in addressing the virus.But the delay by the first country to face the new coronavirus came at a critical time — the beginning of the outbreak. China’s attempt to walk a line between alerting the public and avoiding panic set the stage for a pandemic that has infected almost 2 million people and taken more than 126,000 lives.“This is tremendous,” said Zuo-Feng Zhang, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “If they took action six days earlier, there would have been much fewer patients and medical facilities would have been sufficient. We might have avoided the collapse of Wuhan’s medical system.”Other experts noted that the Chinese government may have waited on warning the public to stave off hysteria, and that it did act quickly in private during that time.But the six-day delay by China’s leaders in Beijing came on top of almost two weeks during which the national Center for Disease Control did not register any cases from local officials, internal bulletins obtained by the AP confirm. Yet during that time, from Jan. 5 to Jan. 17, hundreds of patients were appearing in hospitals not just in Wuhan but across the country.It’s uncertain whether it was local officials who failed to report cases or national officials who failed to record them. It’s also not clear exactly what officials knew at the time in Wuhan, which only opened back up last week with restrictions after its quarantine.But what is clear, experts say, is that China’s rigid controls on information, bureaucratic hurdles and a reluctance to send bad news up the chain of command muffled early warnings.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/6f2e666485e9abae4bb112251eca77be">The punishment of eight doctors for “rumor-mongering,”</a>&nbsp;broadcast on national television on Jan. 2, sent a chill through the city’s hospitals.“Doctors in Wuhan were afraid,” said Dali Yang, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Chicago. “It was truly intimidation of an entire profession.”Without these internal reports, it took the first case outside China, in Thailand on Jan. 13, to galvanize leaders in Beijing into recognizing the possible pandemic before them. It was only then that they launched a nationwide plan to find cases — distributing CDC-sanctioned test kits, easing the criteria for confirming cases and ordering health officials to screen patients, all without telling the public.The Chinese government has repeatedly denied suppressing information in the early days, saying it immediately reported the outbreak to the World Health Organization.“Those accusing China of lacking transparency and openness are unfair,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Wednesday when asked about the AP story.__The documents show that the head of China’s National Health Commission, Ma Xiaowei, laid out a grim assessment of the situation on Jan. 14 in a confidential teleconference with provincial health officials. A memo states that the teleconference was held to convey instructions on the coronavirus from President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, but does not specify what those instructions were.“The epidemic situation is still severe and complex, the most severe challenge since SARS in 2003, and is likely to develop into a major public health event,” the memo cites Ma as saying.The National Health Commission is the top medical agency in the country. In a faxed statement, the Commission said it had organized the teleconference because of the case reported in Thailand and the possibility of the virus spreading during New Year travel. It added that China had published information on the outbreak in an “open, transparent, responsible and timely manner,” in accordance with “important instructions” repeatedly issued by President Xi.The documents come from an anonymous source in the medical field who did not want to be named for fear of retribution. The AP confirmed the contents with two other sources in public health familiar with the teleconference. Some of the memo’s contents also appeared in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/fkdt/202002/e5e8a132ef8b42d484e6df53d4d110c1.shtml" target="_blank">a public notice about the teleconference</a>, stripped of key details and published in February.Under a section titled “sober understanding of the situation,” the memo said that “clustered cases suggest that human-to-human transmission is possible.” It singled out the case in Thailand, saying that the situation had “changed significantly” because of the possible spread of the virus abroad.“With the coming of the Spring Festival, many people will be traveling, and the risk of transmission and spread is high,” the memo continued. “All localities must prepare for and respond to a pandemic.”In the memo, Ma demanded officials unite around Xi and made clear that political considerations and social stability were key priorities during the long lead-up to China’s two biggest political meetings of the year in March. While the documents do not spell out why Chinese leaders waited six days to make their concerns public, the meetings may be one reason.“The imperatives for social stability, for not rocking the boat before these important Party congresses is pretty strong,” says Daniel Mattingly, a scholar of Chinese politics at Yale. “My guess is, they wanted to let it play out a little more and see what happened.”In response to the teleconference, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing initiated the highest-level emergency response internally, level one, on Jan. 15. It assigned top CDC leaders to 14 working groups tasked with getting funds, training health workers, collecting data, doing field investigations and supervising laboratories, an internal CDC notice shows. The memo directed Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, to begin temperature checks at airports, bus and train stations, and cut down on large public gatherings.The National Health Commission also distributed a 63-page set of instructions to provincial health officials, obtained by the AP. The instructions ordered health officials nationwide to identify suspected cases, hospitals to open fever clinics, and doctors and nurses to don protective gear. They were marked “internal” — “not to be spread on the internet,” “not to be publicly disclosed.”In public, however, officials continued to downplay the threat, pointing to the 41 cases public at the time.“We have reached the latest understanding that the risk of sustained human-to-human transmission is low,” Li Qun, the head of the China CDC’s emergency center,&nbsp;<a href="http://tv.cctv.com/2020/01/15/VIDEVPaxZBFtDLGUA6mk5PW2200115.shtml" target="_blank">told Chinese state television on Jan. 15</a>. That was the same day Li was appointed leader of a group preparing emergency plans for the level one response, a CDC notice shows.On Jan. 20, President Xi issued his first public comments on the virus, saying the outbreak “must be taken seriously” and every possible measure pursued. A leading Chinese epidemiologist, Zhong Nanshan,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/14d7dcffa205d9022fa9ea593bb2a8c5">announced for the first time that the virus was transmissible from person to person on national television.</a>If the public had been warned a week earlier to take actions such as social distancing, mask wearing and travel restrictions, cases could have been cut by up to two-thirds,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.03.20029843v3.full.pdf" target="_blank">one paper later found</a>. An earlier warning could have saved lives, said Zhang, the doctor in Los Angeles.However, other health experts said the government took decisive action in private given the information available to them.“They may not have said the right thing, but they were doing the right thing,” said Ray Yip, the retired founding head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s office in China. “On the 20th, they sounded the alarm for the whole country, which is not an unreasonable delay.”If health officials raise the alarm prematurely, it can damage their credibility — “like crying wolf” —and cripple their ability to mobilize the public, said Benjamin Cowley, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong.The delay may support accusations by President Donald Trump that the Chinese government’s secrecy held back the world’s response to the virus. However, even the public announcement on Jan. 20 left the U.S. nearly two months to prepare for the pandemic.During those months,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/6a8f85aad99607f313cca6ab1398e04d">Trump ignored the warnings of his own staff and dismissed the disease as nothing to worry about</a>, while the government&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/090600c299a8cf07f5b44d92534856bc">failed to bolster medical supplies</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/c335958b1f8f6a37b19b421bc7759722">deployed flawed testing kits</a>. Leaders across the world turned a blind eye to the outbreak, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling for a strategy of “herd immunity” —&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/193a0cfe074685144ade169084a68255">before falling ill himself.</a>&nbsp;Brazilian President&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/b21a296383694c6726d03e027134daf1">Jair Bolsonaro sneered at what he called “a little cold.”</a>_________________________The early story of the pandemic in China shows missed opportunities at every step, the documents and AP interviews reveal. Under Xi, China’s most authoritarian leader in decades, increasing political repression has made officials more hesitant to report cases without a clear green light from the top.“It really increased the stakes for officials, which made them reluctant to step out of line,” said Mattingly, the Yale professor. “It made it harder for people at the local level to report bad information.”Doctors and nurses in Wuhan&nbsp;<a href="http://archive.vn/OLdHs#selection-871.108-890.0" target="_blank">told Chinese media</a>&nbsp;there were plenty of signs that the coronavirus could be transmitted between people as early as late December. Patients who had never been to the suspected source of the virus, the Huanan Seafood Market, were infected. Medical workers started falling ill.But officials obstructed medical staff who tried to report such cases. They set tight criteria for confirming cases, where patients not only had to test positive, but samples had to be sent to Beijing and sequenced. They required staff to report to supervisors before sending information higher,&nbsp;<a href="https://archive.is/SYydC" target="_blank">Chinese media reports show.</a>&nbsp;And they punished doctors for warning about the disease.As a result,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/b981ea744ee2a25f89c5abb0e8c1e92f">no new cases were reported for almost two weeks from Jan. 5</a>, even as officials gathered in Wuhan for Hubei province’s two biggest political meetings of the year, internal China CDC bulletins confirm.During this period, teams of experts dispatched to Wuhan by Beijing said they failed to find clear signs of danger and human-to-human transmission.“China has many years of disease control, there’s absolutely no chance that this will spread widely because of Spring Festival travel,” the head of the first expert team, Xu Jianguo,&nbsp;<a href="https://takungpao.com/news/232108/2020/0105/400593.html#10006-weixin-1-52626-6b3bffd01fdde4900130bc5a2751b6d1" target="_blank">told Takungpao, a Hong Kong paper,</a>&nbsp;on Jan. 6. He added there was “no evidence of human-to-human transmission” and that the threat from the virus was low.The second expert team, dispatched on Jan. 8, similarly failed to unearth any clear signs of human-to-human transmission. Yet during their stay, more than half a dozen doctors and nurses had already fallen ill with the virus,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316" target="_blank">a retrospective China CDC study published in the New England Journal of Medicine would later show.</a>The teams looked for patients with severe pneumonia, missing those with milder symptoms. They also narrowed the search to those who had visited the seafood market — which was in retrospect a mistake, said Cowling, the Hong Kong epidemiologist, who flew to Beijing to review the cases in late January.In the weeks after the severity of the epidemic became clear, some experts accused Wuhan officials of intentionally hiding cases.“I always suspected it was human-to-human transmissible,” said Wang Guangfa, the leader of the second expert team, in a Mar. 15 post on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform. He fell ill with the virus soon after returning to Beijing on Jan. 16.Wuhan’s then-mayor, Zhou Xianwang, blamed national regulations for the secrecy.“As a local government official, I could disclose information only after being authorized,” Zhou told state media in late January. “A lot of people didn’t understand this.”As a result, top Chinese officials appear to have been left in the dark.“The CDC acted sluggishly, assuming all was fine,” said a state health expert, who declined to be named out of fear of retribution. “If we started to do something a week or two earlier, things could have been so much different.”It wasn’t just Wuhan. In Shenzhen in southern China, hundreds of miles away, a team led by microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung used their own test kits to confirm that six members of a family of seven had the virus on Jan. 12.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-03-09/exclusive-qa-with-hong-kongs-yuen-kwok-yung-who-helped-confirm-coronaviruss-human-spread-101526079.html" target="_blank">In an interview with Caixin</a>, a respected Chinese finance magazine, Yuen said he informed CDC branches “of all levels,” including Beijing. But internal CDC numbers did not reflect Yuen’s report, the bulletins show.When the Thai case was reported, health authorities finally drew up an internal plan to systematically identify, isolate, test, and treat all cases of the new coronavirus nationwide.Wuhan’s case count began to climb immediately — four on Jan. 17, then 17 the next day and 136 the day after. Across the country, dozens of cases began to surface, in some cases among patients who were infected earlier but had not yet been tested. In Zhejiang, for example,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.zjwjw.gov.cn/art/2020/1/21/art_1202101_41786033.html" target="_blank">a man hospitalized on Jan. 4 was only isolated on Jan. 17 and confirmed positive on Jan. 21.&nbsp;</a>In Shenzhen, the patients Yuen discovered on Jan. 12 were finally recorded as confirmed cases on Jan. 19.The elite Peking Union Medical College Hospital held an emergency meeting on Jan. 18, instructing staff to adopt stringent isolation — still before Xi’s public warning. A health expert told AP that on Jan. 19, she toured a hospital built after the SARS outbreak, where medical workers had furiously prepared an entire building with hundreds of beds for pneumonia patients.“Everybody in the country in the infectious disease field knew something was going on,” she said, declining to be named to avoid disrupting sensitive government consultations. “They were anticipating it.”

China didn't warn public of likely pandemic for 6 key days

By BRIAN GRIMMETT, <a href="https://www.kcur.org/health/2020-04-15/kansas-hospitals-wont-say-how-full-theyre-getting-with-coronavirus-patients">Kansas News Service</a>

WICHITA, Kansas — Flatten the curve: A phrase that didn’t mean
 anything two months ago is now the driving factor behind social 
distancing, stay-at-home orders and limiting the number of people who 
can gather in one place.

The idea is to make sure hospitals aren’t
 overrun with severe COVID-19 cases, as well as help hospitals conserve 
limited resources such as personal protective equipment.

But in 
Kansas there isn’t publicly available data on whether a hospital is 
close to filling up. And few are willing to share that information.

At this point, the <a href="https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/" target="_blank">Kansas Department of Health and Environment</a>
 said 327 people have been hospitalized with COVID-19, but it doesn’t 
provide which hospitals or whether patients have gone home.

<a href="https://www.stormontvail.org/" target="_blank">Stormont Vail in Topeka</a>
 is a rare exception. Every day, the hospital publishes a dashboard with
 information like how many patients it's treating for COVID-19, 
ventilator usage and tests administered. While it strays from giving 
specific numbers of available beds, it does provide a percentage of how 
many of its hospital and intensive care beds are in use.

“It displaces rumor,” Stormont Vail CEO Dr. Rob Kenagy said of releasing the information. “It displaces fear.”

He said early on there were a lot of questions from the community and staff about whether the hospital would be the next <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-ethics-speci/special-report-all-is-well-in-italy-triage-and-lies-for-virus-patients-idUSKBN2133KG" target="_blank">Italy</a>, Spain or <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/03/30/823970536/cuomo-makes-plea-to-medical-workers-nationwide-please-come-help-us-in-new-york" target="_blank">New York City</a> in terms of being overwhelmed. In their crisis plan, he said, transparency seemed like the best option.

The
 hospital is also providing a daily color-coded indicator of where they 
stand with personal protective equipment; green for good, yellow for 
getting low and red for critical need.

“If we were to get into a 
place where our capacity would be tested, we felt like it would be best 
for our community and our team members to know the detail of those 
capacity constraints,” Kenagy said.

Lawrence Memorial Hospital sends out a similar daily dashboard.

The <a href="http://www.medicalnewsnetwork.org/NewsNetwork/DocTalk/C/Coronavirus%20Media%20Briefing%20Thursday%204-9-20" target="_blank">University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, Kansas</a>,
 isn’t going quite that far. But it has provided a daily total of how 
many COVID-19 cases it's treating — hovering at about 30 for a few days.

“That’s
 really what’s telling us where we are on the curve because we haven't 
tested enough people out in the community,” said Dr. Steve Stites, the 
chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System. “We 
don’t have the same public health structure we once did. We don’t have 
the same testing we once had.”

In a news conference Tuesday, he 
said stagnant hospitalization numbers likely mean that the Kansas City 
area is flattening the curve.

Meanwhile, most other hospitals are 
keeping mum. Salina Regional Health Center, Saint Catherine Hospital in 
Garden City and the St. Luke’s Hospital system declined to provide 
capacity information. Ascension Via Christi in Wichita and HCA hospitals
 in the Kansas City metro did not respond to a request for data.

Some
 might not be used to giving out the information, others may be worried 
about competitors knowing any weaknesses. Either way, the information 
exists. It’s just not public.

<a href="https://www.kha-net.org/AboutKHA/" target="_blank">The Kansas Hospital Association</a>
 provides services for and lobbies on behalf of Kansas hospitals. In an 
emailed statement, KHA vice president Cindy Samuelson said its members 
are working with government officials on a daily basis to monitor and 
report system capacity, as well as planning for increased demand.

The
 good news, if there is such a thing during a pandemic, is that one of 
the main models predicting hospital resource use shows Kansas will have 
plenty of capacity.

Kansas is expected to <a href="https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/kansas" target="_blank">reach peak resource use on April 20, needing 485 beds</a>
 for coronavirus patients, according to the Institute for Health Metrics
 and Evaluation. The organization’s model shows the state has enough 
capacity for 4,810 COVID-19 patients. (IMHE calculated capacity based on
 a hospital's total number of beds minus their historical average daily 
use for other types of patients.)

“Quite honestly, we’re not at 
capacity yet,” KDHE Secretary Lee Norman said. “We have a lot of ability
 to surge in terms of the beds and the type of beds.”

Even the 
worst-case scenario of the IMHE model predicts Kansas would need only 
about 1,500 hospital beds — again, well under the system’s total 
capacity.

But a model is only as good as its assumptions, and doesn’t represent the individual needs of each region or hospital.

“If you actually have real data, that trumps any kind of model,” said <a href="http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-people/adalja/" target="_blank">Amesh Adalja</a>,
 an infectious disease physician and researcher at John Hopkins 
University. “We want our models to accurately reflect reality, but 
they’re not a substitute for reality.”

Local hospital 
administrators agreed that making sure the actual hospitalization 
numbers line up with the latest model depends on continued social 
distancing and staying at home efforts.

“The fact is that it has helped a tremendous amount,” Kenagy said. “And we will be able to weather the size of the surge.”

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the name of the University of Kansas Health System.

Brian
 Grimmett reports on the environment, energy and natural resources for 
KMUW in Wichita and the Kansas News Service. You can follow him on 
Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/briangrimmett?lang=en" target="_blank">@briangrimmett</a> or email him at grimmett@kmuw.org.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1586981245204.png" alt="Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka is among those preparing for the worst when it comes to the COVID-19 outbreak. Celia Llopis-Jepsen / Kansas News Service" />
 <figcaption>Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka is among those preparing for the worst when it comes to the COVID-19 outbreak. Celia Llopis-Jepsen / Kansas News Service</figcaption>
 </figure>By BRIAN GRIMMETT, <a href="https://www.kcur.org/health/2020-04-15/kansas-hospitals-wont-say-how-full-theyre-getting-with-coronavirus-patients">Kansas News Service</a>WICHITA, Kansas — Flatten the curve: A phrase that didn’t mean
 anything two months ago is now the driving factor behind social 
distancing, stay-at-home orders and limiting the number of people who 
can gather in one place.The idea is to make sure hospitals aren’t
 overrun with severe COVID-19 cases, as well as help hospitals conserve 
limited resources such as personal protective equipment.But in 
Kansas there isn’t publicly available data on whether a hospital is 
close to filling up. And few are willing to share that information.At this point, the <a href="https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/" target="_blank">Kansas Department of Health and Environment</a>
 said 327 people have been hospitalized with COVID-19, but it doesn’t 
provide which hospitals or whether patients have gone home.<a href="https://www.stormontvail.org/" target="_blank">Stormont Vail in Topeka</a>
 is a rare exception. Every day, the hospital publishes a dashboard with
 information like how many patients it's treating for COVID-19, 
ventilator usage and tests administered. While it strays from giving 
specific numbers of available beds, it does provide a percentage of how 
many of its hospital and intensive care beds are in use.“It displaces rumor,” Stormont Vail CEO Dr. Rob Kenagy said of releasing the information. “It displaces fear.”He said early on there were a lot of questions from the community and staff about whether the hospital would be the next <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-ethics-speci/special-report-all-is-well-in-italy-triage-and-lies-for-virus-patients-idUSKBN2133KG" target="_blank">Italy</a>, Spain or <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/03/30/823970536/cuomo-makes-plea-to-medical-workers-nationwide-please-come-help-us-in-new-york" target="_blank">New York City</a> in terms of being overwhelmed. In their crisis plan, he said, transparency seemed like the best option.The
 hospital is also providing a daily color-coded indicator of where they 
stand with personal protective equipment; green for good, yellow for 
getting low and red for critical need.“If we were to get into a 
place where our capacity would be tested, we felt like it would be best 
for our community and our team members to know the detail of those 
capacity constraints,” Kenagy said.Lawrence Memorial Hospital sends out a similar daily dashboard.The <a href="http://www.medicalnewsnetwork.org/NewsNetwork/DocTalk/C/Coronavirus%20Media%20Briefing%20Thursday%204-9-20" target="_blank">University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, Kansas</a>,
 isn’t going quite that far. But it has provided a daily total of how 
many COVID-19 cases it's treating — hovering at about 30 for a few days.“That’s
 really what’s telling us where we are on the curve because we haven't 
tested enough people out in the community,” said Dr. Steve Stites, the 
chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System. “We 
don’t have the same public health structure we once did. We don’t have 
the same testing we once had.”In a news conference Tuesday, he 
said stagnant hospitalization numbers likely mean that the Kansas City 
area is flattening the curve.Meanwhile, most other hospitals are 
keeping mum. Salina Regional Health Center, Saint Catherine Hospital in 
Garden City and the St. Luke’s Hospital system declined to provide 
capacity information. Ascension Via Christi in Wichita and HCA hospitals
 in the Kansas City metro did not respond to a request for data.Some
 might not be used to giving out the information, others may be worried 
about competitors knowing any weaknesses. Either way, the information 
exists. It’s just not public.<a href="https://www.kha-net.org/AboutKHA/" target="_blank">The Kansas Hospital Association</a>
 provides services for and lobbies on behalf of Kansas hospitals. In an 
emailed statement, KHA vice president Cindy Samuelson said its members 
are working with government officials on a daily basis to monitor and 
report system capacity, as well as planning for increased demand.<h2>Predicting the future</h2>The
 good news, if there is such a thing during a pandemic, is that one of 
the main models predicting hospital resource use shows Kansas will have 
plenty of capacity.Kansas is expected to <a href="https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/kansas" target="_blank">reach peak resource use on April 20, needing 485 beds</a>
 for coronavirus patients, according to the Institute for Health Metrics
 and Evaluation. The organization’s model shows the state has enough 
capacity for 4,810 COVID-19 patients. (IMHE calculated capacity based on
 a hospital's total number of beds minus their historical average daily 
use for other types of patients.)“Quite honestly, we’re not at 
capacity yet,” KDHE Secretary Lee Norman said. “We have a lot of ability
 to surge in terms of the beds and the type of beds.”Even the 
worst-case scenario of the IMHE model predicts Kansas would need only 
about 1,500 hospital beds — again, well under the system’s total 
capacity.But a model is only as good as its assumptions, and doesn’t represent the individual needs of each region or hospital.“If you actually have real data, that trumps any kind of model,” said <a href="http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-people/adalja/" target="_blank">Amesh Adalja</a>,
 an infectious disease physician and researcher at John Hopkins 
University. “We want our models to accurately reflect reality, but 
they’re not a substitute for reality.”Local hospital 
administrators agreed that making sure the actual hospitalization 
numbers line up with the latest model depends on continued social 
distancing and staying at home efforts.“The fact is that it has helped a tremendous amount,” Kenagy said. “And we will be able to weather the size of the surge.”Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the name of the University of Kansas Health System.Brian
 Grimmett reports on the environment, energy and natural resources for 
KMUW in Wichita and the Kansas News Service. You can follow him on 
Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/briangrimmett?lang=en" target="_blank">@briangrimmett</a> or email him at grimmett@kmuw.org.

Kan. hospitals won't say how full they're getting with virus patients 

JEFFERSON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Kansas man after the execution of search warrant.

Just after 1a.m. Tuesday, the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office served a search warrant at a residence in the 2700 block of NE 35th&nbsp;Street, according to Sgt. Todd Stallbaumer.&nbsp; The Sheriff’s Office developed intel that there were multiple stolen vehicles at the residence.

Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office deputies, assisted by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, arrested Travis D. Walker, 39, of Topeka after locating three stolen motorcycles reported through the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office, Topeka Police Department and Meriden Police Department. 

Deputies also located a stolen 2006 Chevy Pickup at the residence along with a stolen John Deere tractor that was recovered at a separate location in the county.&nbsp; The John Deere tractor and Chevy Pickup were reported stolen out of Jefferson County.

&nbsp;Walker was booked into the Jefferson County Department of Corrections for Aggravated Burglary with several Shawnee County charges pending.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1586880987853.png" alt="Walker photo Jefferson County" />
 <figcaption>Walker photo Jefferson County</figcaption>
 </figure>JEFFERSON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Kansas man after the execution of search warrant.Just after 1a.m. Tuesday, the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office served a search warrant at a residence in the 2700 block of NE 35th&nbsp;Street, according to Sgt. Todd Stallbaumer.&nbsp; The Sheriff’s Office developed intel that there were multiple stolen vehicles at the residence.Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office deputies, assisted by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, arrested Travis D. Walker, 39, of Topeka after locating three stolen motorcycles reported through the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office, Topeka Police Department and Meriden Police Department. Deputies also located a stolen 2006 Chevy Pickup at the residence along with a stolen John Deere tractor that was recovered at a separate location in the county.&nbsp; The John Deere tractor and Chevy Pickup were reported stolen out of Jefferson County.&nbsp;Walker was booked into the Jefferson County Department of Corrections for Aggravated Burglary with several Shawnee County charges pending.

Sheriff: Kan. man stole John Deere tractor, motorcycles

The coronavirus put tens of 
thousands of Kansans out of work, and left them frustrated when they try
 filing for unemployment benefits.

By JIM MCLEAN, <a href="https://www.kcur.org/tags/kansas-news-service">Kansas News Service</a>

TOPEKA — A month into the economic fallout from the 
COVID-19 outbreak, one thing is clear: The Kansas Department of Labor 
found itself unprepared for a record number of jobless claims filed by 
people suddenly tossed out of work.

“It’s completely unprecedented,” said Brett Flachsbarth, deputy secretary and a 15-year veteran of the agency.

Since
 March 14, more than 160,000 Kansans have filed first-time claims for 
unemployment benefits. That is a 2,457% increase over the previous 
month.

The explosion in claims crashed the agency’s website and 
overloaded its phone lines, often with hundreds of thousands of calls in
 a single day.

Some people say they called hundreds of times 
before getting through to someone in the department’s call center. Even 
when they got through, calls often ended in frustration.

After 
failing to reach anyone for two weeks, Sarah Abdel finally got through 
only to have her call immediately redirected to a “claims specialist.”

“Then that person transferred me to another department that just hung up on me,” Abdel said.

After
 mustering out of the Navy last fall, Abel returned to Kansas to go to 
school. But she also took a full-time job at a small cosmetics retailer 
in the Kansas City area. She was laid off three weeks ago.

Because of an issue with her military pay, Abdel said she can’t use the agency’s website to file a claim.

Like
 tens of thousands of other Kansas struggling to get unemployment 
benefits, Abdel sometimes tunes in to the agency’s Facebook Live updates
 at 9 a.m. weekdays, where officials attempt to explain the technical 
difficulties they’re having while pleading for patience.

“To me, they’ve had time to fix it and I don’t really see any results,” she said. “I just keep hearing excuses.”

Josie Layne tells a similar story. She was in line for a promotion at Savers, an Olathe thrift store, before she got laid off.

She’s
 been trying for weeks to get through on the phone to file a claim. 
Every now and then, someone answers and quickly transfers her to a phone
 that just rings and rings.

“For 30 minutes then hangs up,” Layne said. “That’s happened to me like 10 times.”

So
 while trying to file online last weekend, Layne said the agency’s 
website crashed. She checked back the next day but it was still down.

“It doesn’t even pull up,” Layne said. “It just says ‘unavailable’ or something like that.”

The department has quadrupled its call center staff and worked its 
information technology staff around the clock in a futile attempt to 
keep pace with the claims and keep the website functioning, Flachsbarth 
said.

The old mainframe computer that the department uses wasn’t 
built to handle the volume of claims now pouring in, he said. It dates 
back to the mid-1970s and uses a program developed in the 1950s.

Because
 labor departments across the country use the same system, he said, 
states have known for a long time that they need to modernize their 
technology.

But money has been a problem. Most of the Kansas 
Department of Labor’s funding comes from the federal government. It gets
 more when unemployment rates are high and less when they’re low.

Kansas
 has had an unemployment rate below 4% since 2017. So, from a budget and
 staffing standpoint, the agency was unprepared to handle the sudden 
spike in claims triggered by the coronavirus shutdown.

Even so, Flachsbarth said, it was finally moving to replace its aging computer system.

“We have been engaged for the last year in trying to take necessary steps forward to modernize our system,” he said.

Agency
 officials had made site visits to states that had overhauled their 
systems and “doing game-planning for what our options were,” he said, 
“when this (the coronavirus) hit.”

Now, Flachsbarth said, “everything … is focused on how we can provide the most service to the most people.”

So
 far, he said, that hasn’t been enough. In addition to problems handling
 claims for state benefits, the agency hasn’t been able to make the 
changes needed to get an additional $600 a week in federal benefits out 
the door to Kansans who qualify for them.

And the agency is weeks 
away from making the administrative changes necessary to implement 
federal rule changes that make self-employed people and those who work 
in the “gig economy” — think Uber drivers and the like — eligible for 
benefits.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1586986796436.png" alt="Josie Layne lost her jobs at an Olathe thrift store just as she was about to get promoted. Now she's facing frustration getting unemployment benefits from the state's overwhelmed Department of Labor, where calls go unanswered and the website crashes regularly. Jim McLean / Kansas News Service" />
 <figcaption>Josie Layne lost her jobs at an Olathe thrift store just as she was about to get promoted. Now she's facing frustration getting unemployment benefits from the state's overwhelmed Department of Labor, where calls go unanswered and the website crashes regularly. Jim McLean / Kansas News Service</figcaption>
 </figure><h2>The coronavirus put tens of 
thousands of Kansans out of work, and left them frustrated when they try
 filing for unemployment benefits.</h2>By JIM MCLEAN, <a href="https://www.kcur.org/tags/kansas-news-service">Kansas News Service</a>TOPEKA — A month into the economic fallout from the 
COVID-19 outbreak, one thing is clear: The Kansas Department of Labor 
found itself unprepared for a record number of jobless claims filed by 
people suddenly tossed out of work.“It’s completely unprecedented,” said Brett Flachsbarth, deputy secretary and a 15-year veteran of the agency.Since
 March 14, more than 160,000 Kansans have filed first-time claims for 
unemployment benefits. That is a 2,457% increase over the previous 
month.The explosion in claims crashed the agency’s website and 
overloaded its phone lines, often with hundreds of thousands of calls in
 a single day.Some people say they called hundreds of times 
before getting through to someone in the department’s call center. Even 
when they got through, calls often ended in frustration.After 
failing to reach anyone for two weeks, Sarah Abdel finally got through 
only to have her call immediately redirected to a “claims specialist.”“Then that person transferred me to another department that just hung up on me,” Abdel said.After
 mustering out of the Navy last fall, Abel returned to Kansas to go to 
school. But she also took a full-time job at a small cosmetics retailer 
in the Kansas City area. She was laid off three weeks ago.Because of an issue with her military pay, Abdel said she can’t use the agency’s website to file a claim.Like
 tens of thousands of other Kansas struggling to get unemployment 
benefits, Abdel sometimes tunes in to the agency’s Facebook Live updates
 at 9 a.m. weekdays, where officials attempt to explain the technical 
difficulties they’re having while pleading for patience.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1586986903073.png" alt="Laurel Klein Searles, the Kansas unemployment insurance director, gives regular updates on Facebook about problems processing unemployment claims. Facebook Live" />
 <figcaption>Laurel Klein Searles, the Kansas unemployment insurance director, gives regular updates on Facebook about problems processing unemployment claims. Facebook Live</figcaption>
 </figure>“To me, they’ve had time to fix it and I don’t really see any results,” she said. “I just keep hearing excuses.”Josie Layne tells a similar story. She was in line for a promotion at Savers, an Olathe thrift store, before she got laid off.She’s
 been trying for weeks to get through on the phone to file a claim. 
Every now and then, someone answers and quickly transfers her to a phone
 that just rings and rings.“For 30 minutes then hangs up,” Layne said. “That’s happened to me like 10 times.”So
 while trying to file online last weekend, Layne said the agency’s 
website crashed. She checked back the next day but it was still down.“It doesn’t even pull up,” Layne said. “It just says ‘unavailable’ or something like that.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1586986933594.png" alt="The Kansas Department of Labor website has been overloaded by jobless benefit requests" />
 <figcaption>The Kansas Department of Labor website has been overloaded by jobless benefit requests</figcaption>
 </figure>The department has quadrupled its call center staff and worked its 
information technology staff around the clock in a futile attempt to 
keep pace with the claims and keep the website functioning, Flachsbarth 
said.The old mainframe computer that the department uses wasn’t 
built to handle the volume of claims now pouring in, he said. It dates 
back to the mid-1970s and uses a program developed in the 1950s.Because
 labor departments across the country use the same system, he said, 
states have known for a long time that they need to modernize their 
technology.But money has been a problem. Most of the Kansas 
Department of Labor’s funding comes from the federal government. It gets
 more when unemployment rates are high and less when they’re low.Kansas
 has had an unemployment rate below 4% since 2017. So, from a budget and
 staffing standpoint, the agency was unprepared to handle the sudden 
spike in claims triggered by the coronavirus shutdown.Even so, Flachsbarth said, it was finally moving to replace its aging computer system.“We have been engaged for the last year in trying to take necessary steps forward to modernize our system,” he said.Agency
 officials had made site visits to states that had overhauled their 
systems and “doing game-planning for what our options were,” he said, 
“when this (the coronavirus) hit.”Now, Flachsbarth said, “everything … is focused on how we can provide the most service to the most people.”So
 far, he said, that hasn’t been enough. In addition to problems handling
 claims for state benefits, the agency hasn’t been able to make the 
changes needed to get an additional $600 a week in federal benefits out 
the door to Kansans who qualify for them.And the agency is weeks 
away from making the administrative changes necessary to implement 
federal rule changes that make self-employed people and those who work 
in the “gig economy” — think Uber drivers and the like — eligible for 
benefits.Flachsbarth knows that Kansans who desperately need 
unemployment benefits but can’t get them are frustrated and angry. But 
he said the agency is “doing everything possible to assist them.”“That
 being said,” Flacshbarth added, “there has to be an awareness on our 
part that doesn’t give them (Kansans) the resources they need to pay 
rent, buy groceries (and) meet those essential needs.”Meanwhile, the beleaguered agency has also become a political football.Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican and
 U.S. Senate candidate, has criticized Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly for 
failing to fix the problems holding up benefits for out-of-work Kansans.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/4/1586986967714.png" alt="This closed thrift store is one of thousands of business shuttered across Kansas, closings that have overwhelmed the state's unemployment benefits system. Jim McLean photo" />
 <figcaption>This closed thrift store is one of thousands of business shuttered across Kansas, closings that have overwhelmed the state's unemployment benefits system. Jim McLean photo</figcaption>
 </figure>“This failure has been brewing since the pandemic began and Kansans have run out of patience,” Wagle said.Kelly
 defended the agency, comparing the work that needs to be done to get 
things running smoothly to “fixing a plane in the air.”In a news 
conference Wednesday afternoon, the governor said the agency now has 150
 people answering phones about jobless calls and 30 people working on 
the website and the underlying “antiquated” computer system.The dated computer infrastructure, Kelly said, was the result of foot-dragging in Kansas and across the country over decades.“We should have invested a lot earlier,” she said.Kelly said now the state is gradually improving the processing of unemployment claims and the checks that follow.“The work,” she said, “is paying off.”Jim
 McLean is the senior correspondent for the Kansas News Service is a 
collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public 
Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their 
connection to public policy. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks or 
email jim@kcur.org.