The Lyon County Commission’s special meeting on COVID-19-based mitigation policies comes with the county in an ongoing caseload surge since Thanksgiving. It also comes at a time when there is some question about the number of omicron variant cases for the county.
Lyon County added 471 cases between Dec. 31 and this past Friday, and the active caseload at 481 is the highest Lyon County has seen since Nov. 26, 2020.
This weekend, McClatchy newspapers The Kansas City Star and The Wichita Eagle reported Lyon County has 156 cases of the omicron variant as of Friday’s report, but Lyon County Health Officer Dr. Ladun Oyenuga says the county is not in a position to confirm that number. McClatchy’s number is the same number reported as Variant of Concern cases by Public Health, but Oyenuga says the Kansas Department of Health and Environment is conducting tests for omicron and other variants. So far, KDHE has not listed any omicron variant cases for Lyon County or any neighboring counties.
Lyon County has also been listing Variant of Concern and Variant Being Monitored cases for months, essentially since the delta variant came to the forefront this past summer. Friday’s report had 156 Variant of Concern cases and 20 of Variants Being Monitored.
