What form it takes and how quickly changes might occur is far from clear.
For the last 35 years, county commissioners have tried unsuccessfully to address the needs of rural fire districts across Reno County.
The overwhelming theme shown in a comprehensive report is that central management by a professional fire chief could solve many of the pressing issues each station faces. Existing fire chiefs could manage the specific needs of individual districts while rolling out uniform policies and training.
Last year, Emergency Management Director Adam Weishaar noted how many rural fire districts were looking to build new fire stations. The construction would cost millions, but there was no clear plan for future fire operations.
COVID-19 numbers continue to improve, though more deaths recorded locally
COVID-19 case counts in Reno County have come down quite a bit over the past week, and it appears the county may move into “orange status” on the alert level for school gating criteria this week.
If so, it will be the first time since early October that local 14-day case counts and positive test rates were low enough to reduce the alert status, said Reno County Health Department assistant director Karen Hammersmith.
But while the number of new cases has been in single digits for seven of the last 10 days – there were 12 new cases reported Tuesday and 24 on Feb. 4 – residents continue to be hospitalized and die from the disease.
Hospitalizations from the virus, however, continued to drop, reaching their lowest number in months.
Meanwhile, on the vaccine front health officials said they don’t expect vaccines to be available for administration to high-risk individuals in the general public until late February or early March, and they are working on developing various distribution plans.
Mostly positive news
On Tuesday morning, there were only eight patients in Hutchinson Regional Medical Center with confirmed COVID-19, said HRMC vice president Chuck Welch, including one person on a ventilator.
That compared to 18 people in the hospital with the virus on Jan. 6, and 41 on Dec. 4, when local COVID-19 hospitalizations peaked.