With other viral diseases present in the community, one local hospital official says you shouldn’t assume symptoms are not COVID related.
Ascension Via Christi President and CEO Bob Copple tells KMAN the difficulty is the symptoms are all very similar between the illnesses circulating right now.
Copple says if you are feeling symptomatic, isolate immediately until you can talk to a physician or get tested. While he cautioned against N95 masks since they need to be fitted to be effective, he still urges people to have good hand hygiene and to continue to wear a mask when in a gathering.
As testing is becoming more prevalent again, there are questions on the validity of the at home tests. Copple says while the at home tests are the most plentiful, they are the least sensitive.
Copple is seeing people testing themselves multiple times a day with the at home kits. He says this accomplishes nothing and actually wastes tests that are already hard to come by.
There are blood drives happening in the area tomorrow through Friday, as well as next Tuesday. There will also be more drives in Wamego in the early part of February. Copple says COVID protocols are heavily followed at these drives.
More information on blood drives in the area can be found on the Kansas Red Cross website.
