Two more Kansas counties issued stay at home orders Monday as the novel coronavirus continues to spread and transform daily life across the country. The order in Miami County, just south of Johnson County, goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. The order in Doniphan County, in northeastern Kansas, goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, officials announced. (Read more: KC Star Local News)

Kansas City and its surrounding counties will be subject to a stay-at-home order effective Tuesday morning in an effort to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, Mayor Quinton Lucas announced Saturday. The order, which will go into effect 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, requires residents of Kansas City and Johnson, Jackson and Wyandotte counties to remain at home except for activities “essential to the health and safety” of themselves, family members or friends. (Read more: KC Star Local News)

Another county in the Kansas City area is taking similar precautions following the metro area’s stay at home order announced Saturday. Leavenworth County issued a stay-at-home order Sunday that goes into effect Tuesday, March 24. Like the order for Kansas City and its surrounding counties, which takes effect the same day, Leavenworth County residents are being told to stay home unless they’re performing an “essential activity.” (Read more: KC Star Local News)

The first novel coronavirus case in Jackson County, Kansas, about 30 miles north of Topeka, was confirmed Thursday. Though the news came with few details about the patient or how the person contracted it, one thing was certain: Coronavirus has arrived in rural Kansas, which has been depleted of the crucial resources that will be needed if the outbreak spirals. After decades of declining population, many parts of Kansas and Missouri are left with few or no hospitals to treat patients suffering from COVID-19. (Read more: KC Star Local News)

Testing for the novel coronavirus will be reduced in Johnson County, which has reached the point where the virus is spreading by community transmission, state officials said Wednesday. The county has the most presumed positive cases of COVID-19 in the state with 12. Five of those cases, Kansas Secretary of Health and Education Lee Norman said, involved people who did not contract the disease through travel or contact with known patients. Because of this, and because of a limited supply of test kits, Norman said, there will be a “fundamental change” in the public health approach there. (Read more: KC Star [...]

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s order Tuesday to keep students out of K-12 schools for the remainder of the school year incited an explosion of anger, shock, tears and questions that school officials have not answered yet. The move, unprecedented for the state, was needed because it became clear that the spread of the new coronavirus “cannot be controlled if school districts return to normal operation,” Kelly said. Some school districts posted notices as soon as Kelly spoke, promising details to come. But confusion reigned, judging by the social media storm that followed. (Read more: KC Star Local News)

A man in his 50s in Johnson County preliminarily tested positive for the new coronavirus, the sixth case confirmed in the Kansas county since the outbreak began, officials said Sunday. The origin of the man’s infection remained unknown. He was doing well in isolation at home and his family was in quarantine, according to the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment. The department said it would get in touch with anyone who was in close contact with the man. The presumptive positive case was tested at a state laboratory; the results will be sent to the Centers for Disease Control [...]

Kansas and Missouri hold sweeping, authoritarian-like powers to separate from their friends, families and communities anyone who has coronavirus or has been exposed to it. Health officials can order you to stay in your home or keep you in a secluded location. Neighborhoods and even entire cities can be locked down. You can be prosecuted for non-compliance. Neither state has invoked these broad powers so far. But measures that just a few weeks ago seemed to be the stuff of dystopian novels and movies are becoming reality in the United States and around the world. (Read more: KC Star Local News)

The Kansas City area’s first death from the coronavirus was announced Thursday night by Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly. A male in his 70s died in a long-term care facility in Wyandotte County, she said. The announcement came hours after Mayor David Alvey of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, had told residents they did not have a confirmed case of COVID-19 in the county. No cases of the respiratory illness have been confirmed in Kansas City, but three new cases were identified earlier Thursday in Johnson County. In Missouri, Gov. Mike Parson announced the state’s second “presumptive [...]

Carol Hein was looking forward to spending the rest of retirement in Roeland Park — in the house she has lived in for 38 years, surrounded by mature oak trees and well-maintained Cape Cod homes. She doesn’t want to leave her two-bedroom ranch-style home, which is a lasting reminder of her late husband and the first years they lived together as newlyweds. But now 74, Hein is questioning how long she can afford to live in Kansas’ wealthiest county, where home values continue to skyrocket — pushing up property taxes year after year. (Read more: KC Star Local News)