On April 7, Ellsworth County reported its first case of COVID-19. However, that report was reversed minutes later. Kerianne Ehrlich, supervisor of the county health department, gave a brief review on that reversal at the April 9 meeting of the county’s local emergency planning committee.

“It was ours for a brief moment, and then it got turned over to Barton County,” she said.

Ehrlich said the way the state reporting system works is when a reportable disease form is sent to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, that form contains the patient’s physical address and other information.

Ehrlich said the form is assigned a county by the zip code listed on the form.

“Then after that is assigned, there is a verification of the actual address to tell you the physical location,” she said. “Which on this one happened to be Barton County, but they didn’t know that until after they had already assigned it to Ellsworth County.”

Ehrlich said although the case of COVID-19 was in Barton County, it’s still close to home.

“Whether it’s positive or negative, it’s still basically in our area,” she said. “We still need to act like we have it in our community. Even though we don’t have any confirmed, it’s not saying there aren’t people out there with it.”

Ehrlich said she is reviewing the way COVID-19 test results are determined for Ellsworth County because she was told several local residents have been tested at hospitals outside of the county.