(Sedgwick County, Kan.) – Residents are asked to answer the call this week to help determine the spread of the coronavirus in Sedgwick County.
The Sedgwick County Health Department has partnered with a call center to contact 1,600 randomly selected residents and ask them to be tested regardless of symptoms. Phone calls will come from a local phone number with a 660 prefix like all Sedgwick County departments. The testing will identify residents with active coronavirus infection on the day the nasopharyngeal (NP or nose) swab was collected. The tests will not determine whether a person was previously infected with the virus and has recovered.
Residents who choose to participate will be asked to provide basic information and then schedule a time (June 18, 19, or 20) for sampling. On the appointment day, the resident will go through the SCHD drive-through sampling site where an NP swab will be collected. The swab will be sent to a laboratory for testing and the Health Department will provide the results of the tests generally three to four days later. The study will be offered at no cost to residents.
Testing a random sample of residents is different from the COVID-19 testing currently provided at healthcare facilities. The current testing is performed on people who seek to be tested. Most have symptoms. The results do not necessarily reflect the true amount of COVID-19 in the Sedgwick County population.
A second NP swab random sample study will occur in mid-July. Results will be compared to the June study to determine if the spread of coronavirus across the county has changed.
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