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2021-07-02T12:30:00The Life of a University Campus During the Pandemic
How quiet can a campus of normally 21,000 students get? I will let you in, you can hear a pin drop. When the pandemic began, the school shut down the school Union. On top of that, I was placed on furlough from my job from March until August last year because my job is located in that Union! When I was able to come back to campus, masks and hand sanitizer were required (still are) and the other thing that was noticed was...the silence. Normally, the Union has about 1,000-2,000 students and staff in it at a time, but due to the pandemic, it was completely dead inside. Not only that, the hours that we were open cut in half until some of our workers were let go based on the amount of time that they had spent in their position. In the midst of the pandemic, it would become extremely eerie because there would be times we would not see a single customer for over an hour when normally, it would be steady (and during peak hours extremely busy). Due to the pandemic, our manager left the business and that left me and another co-worker (now the manager) in charge of a store that normally has 8 eight employees. Normally during this time of year, even though it is summer, the Union is completely full due to Freshman Orientation, camps, and campus tours. Currently, as my photo suggests, the Union is a ghost yard....there are no students during the lunch hours, no restaurants open other than the convenience store, and no staff walking around. Ever since last March, this is not only how the Union has been, but also the campus itself. I chose to take a picture of the Student Union Courtyard because this is normally where events are held during open hours in the Union. This is not to show that there are no individuals in the building, what I specifically want to bring attention to is because of no people in the building, it is completely silent 95% of the time. In addition, this is where the Freshman Orientation stations would be where they go to get information about classes and other events on campus. It is very weird to have no one in the building when two years ago they had roughly 2,000 people in the building during the lunch hour period when I worked for Follett's convenience store. It would be extremely loud, at all times and the shifts would go by quickly. Now...there is nothing but silence about 95% of the time on a public campus of 21,000 students! -
2021-04-23COVID 19, BLM and Religion - My story of 2020
This story tells my experience of having Covid-19 along with being the mother of a brown child during the pandemic and BLM movement. I also share how this year drew the line in the sand for our family's faith and how my partner and I finally found the courage to come out. -
2020-09-11Teaching during the Pandemic in Rural Kansas
As a history teacher in rural Kansas, I thought I would bring a little humor to my hallway as I monitored the temperature scanners. My world history students were currently studying the Middle Ages and in our small school, I had taught every single sophomore, junior, and senior the same lessons, so I knew they would understand my outfit and think it was funny. This was a nice way to bring humor to a new situation during the first few weeks of an uncertain school year. -
02/20/2021David Downs Oral History, 2021/02/20
David Downs is a man of very few words. He is 64 years old and works a laborious job in an aircraft plant for Textron Aviation. He also manages a home with many animals, including horses. When I asked him to do an interview, he wasn’t terribly excited, as you can see by the short answers and hear by the bored voice. However, he did admit that time off work was a silver lining in the pandemic, as well as getting to spend more time with his family. -
02/20/2021Toni Downs Oral History, 2021/02/20
Toni Downs is the Director of Surgical Services, the Cath Lab, and Endoscopy at Mercy Regional Hospital in Manhattan, Kansas. She is 64 and has been in nursing since she was 21 years old. She has worked there for over a decade now, and has seen many challenges while working there. This pandemic has been the worst she’s seen since being a nurse, but it is not without its blessings. The nursing profession has been strong and fierce in fighting this pandemic and as a director, Toni sees their dedication and strength. When asked what her silver lining is during this pandemic, she immediately goes to nursing. Toni touches on other front line workers that deserve recognition, but she thinks that the pandemic has caused people to pay more attention to the hard work nurses do for their community. She sees being a nurse as a caring and rewarding job, and is glad other people are starting to see it too. -
2021-01-26Documents that Explore Vaccine Differences Between States
It shows the differences in vaccines between states which will be valuable in the future. -
2021-01-18Second Dose Issues
In Wichita, Kansas, they gave all the doses they had with assurances that the second doses will arrive soon. However, as the date creeps up, the clinics haven’t received the second shipment later, and people are left wondering if they'll even be able to receive the second dose in the correct window of time. -
2021-01-23Giving the Vaccine
The process of giving the COVID vaccine is not as simple as one may think. For starters, hospitals and clinics have no idea when they will receive the next shipment of doses since it is held and distributed by the state. Scheduling appointments for the general population is difficult without knowing when they’ll receive the next shipment. Then, the paperwork is extensive for each patient. And when a bottle is opened, all doses must be pulled up immediately and distributed within 15-45 minutes, leaving little room for mistakes or missed appointments. Via Christi in Manhattan, Kansas, USA is proud to say they have not wasted a single dose yet, unlike many other hospitals across the US. The patient then has to wait for 15 minutes to be observed by the hospital staff for reactions before they can leave. If this sounds like a lot for a patient, imagine the process for the hospital staff. -
2021-01-23Vaccine Rollout in Lower-Middle Income Countries
Getting vaccines for lower to middle income countries is a challenge. Some experts believe up to 90% in low income countries will not receive the vaccine in 2021. It isn’t just buying the vaccine for them, it is transporting the vaccine safely. The vaccine is incredibly temperature-sensitive. The Moderna vaccine must be kept between -25°C and -15°C (-13°F and 5°F), while the Pfizer vaccine is minus 70°C! The answer for rural areas: solar-powered refrigeration. This “cold chain” of refrigerated vehicles may allow many areas in places like Africa to receive the vaccine. There are still complications and experts think up to 25% of the vaccines will still be wasted until the refrigerators are perfected. -
2020-10-21
Spend time doing what matters to you most.
During the COVID-19 pandemic I have had to surmount multiple extremely challenging situations that were only made even more difficult by the pandemic, including the death of my last grandparent. As someone with pre-existing conditions, I usually have to be very careful about not just protecting myself when I leave my house in Chandler, Arizona, but making sure I don't spread any disease to my family. When I got the news that my Grandmother probably didn't have much time left due to her cancer, it was extremely distressing for several reasons. The main reason was the fact that I was losing my grandmother, but one factor that was just as, if not more distressing, was the question of how to be able to best safely spend time with her. After a long discussion with my family, I made it clear that just being on video chat or on the phone with my grandmother was not enough; I wanted to find a way to travel to her house in Kansas, and physically be there for her. It was not an easy decision to make, especially when one takes into account that my method of transportation was to fly, which made me very nervous as someone with pre-existing conditions. Fortunately, I was able to take a safe flight to Kansas, but I was shocked to find family visiting my grandmother from out of state that not only refused to wear masks around her, even though she had virtually no immune system left. Despite such stressful conditions, I was able to spend a week with my grandmother just before she passed away, even though COVID-19 made it very hard. The fact that I was able to do such a thing is striking to me, especially when compared to the vast amount of people around the world who aren't able to spend time with loved ones infected with COVID-19 before they pass away. Looking back, I am very lucky I did not get sick, and I was even more lucky that flights were beginning to become regularly available again after they had been shut down earlier in the year. Most of all, I feel very grateful that I was able to spend time with my grandmother, especially when so many people are dying alone all over the world, leaving families distraught, and without closure. -
2020-05-16A Starbucks re-opens after shelter in place
After a month and a half of paid stay at home time, a Starbucks in Junction City re-opens. The top image shows text, “Our store is temporarily closed” and the description reads “We’re here reopening the store. Come see us this Monday for your favorite Starbucks beverage. Store hours: 6am-4p.” The bottom image shows a group of baristas, wearing masks, back at work. The words pandemic, or covid-19 are nowhere to be found, trying to project a sense of normalcy. -
2020-07Finding Beauty in a COVID World
I thought I would upload these photos to share how I found beauty this summer despite everything happening right now in the US. It serves as a reminder that although things are not normal and probably won't be for a long time, there is such immense beauty that exists in this world. If it weren't for COVID and losing my job I would not have experienced many of these moments that I captured in these pictures. Perhaps the silver lining of COVID is that for a lot of us, it has forced us to literally sit back and reflect and these photos illustrate the "COVID -friendly" activities I chose to do this summer with all my free time. Some of these photos are some scenic landscapes in NYC, where I live. The rest of these images are from various scenic places throughout the country, mostly in the west, where I began my roadtrip back to NYC a few weeks ago. -
2020-08-05Viral Spread: A Snapshot of Kansas Coronavirus Cases
This screenshot taken on August 5, 2020, captures the virus's spread in the state of Kansas as of that date, with Johnson and Wyandotte Counties ("JO" and "WY"/Kansas City, KS, metro-area), along with Sedgwick County ("SG"/Wichita), leading the state in total number of cases. The two graphs depict the virus's course throughout the spring and summer of 2020, revealing its early rise, decline, and accelerated summer surge. Together, these screenshots offer a snapshot of the effects of a patchwork response and quick reopening, and how quickly virus cases spread as a result. -
2020-08-04A New and Uncertain School Year
The marquee along Maple Street, Wichita, Kansas, for Benton Elementary School urges parents to enroll their children now in what many thought would be a challenging school year. In late July, the Wichita school board delayed the start of the school year until after Labor Day in order to give faculty and staff more time to adjust their curriculum to more flexible models, clean facilities, and set up necessary shields, barriers, and social distancing measures. Despite the mandate requiring these measures, as well as masks and hand washing every hour, teachers and students still ventured into an uncertain school year, as Wichita-area schools forged ahead with in-person instruction and contact sports. -
2020-08-04Kansas Primary, August 4, 2020
A scene taken on the day of the Kansas primaries for the US Senate and House of Representatives. With the state caught in COVID's grip, many voters availed themselves of mail-in-ballots, but some voters still preferred to show up to the polls in person, as they did here in southwest Wichita. Nevertheless, this image captures but a small segment of the various challenges that the United States faced in holding federal, state, and municipal elections in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. -
2020-08-04Last Call: Wichita Bars and Nightclubs Close...Again
On July 21, 2020, the Sedgwick County Public Health Officer closed all bars and nightclubs until September 9, a date the Sedgwick County Commission quickly amended to August 21. These photographs show two items that sat side-by-side at the front entrance of the Blu Nightclub in west Wichita, Kansas. The first alerts patrons to the club's mitigation efforts and what is expected of them upon entering the establishment, while the second, which was taped to the front door, informs customers that they are closed until August 22. Although no COVID clusters originated in bars and nightclubs, Sedgwick County contact tracers discovered that infected people had stopped at such businesses and possibly spread the virus even more. Finally, note the owner's insertion of the word "Hopefully" on the left side of the sign. With federal aid expired and relief mired in a partisan deadlock in Washington, D.C., many businesses in Wichita, and across the country, feared the potentially fatal effects repeated closures would have upon their livelihoods. -
2020-08-04A Roadside Appeal
This sign implores Wichita residents to save a life by wearing a protective mask, thereby underscoring face masks' growing importance, when it had been previously dismissed as a relatively ineffective non-pharmaceutical intervention early in the pandemic. Not only does this sign attempt to reinforce the city's mask mandate, its wording also hints at how COVID-19 had become a threat to all age demographics by the summer of 2020. At the time of this photograph, the average age of an infected patient in Wichita had dropped from the mid-60s in the spring to 37, thus Wesley Hospital's appeal for everyone to do their part to help stop a rapidly accelerating and demographically expanding contagion. -
2020-08-04COVID Testing West Wichita
In an effort to expand testing in west Wichita, Kansas, West Wichita Family Physicians sealed off their minor care clinic from the rest of their facility in order to dedicate it to COVID-19 screening and testing. A patient would call the number listed at the bottom of the sign, then proceed to answer questions pertaining to their travel history, risk factors, symptoms, and possible exposure to the virus. Should the patient's condition warrant further investigation, an appointment was made, with the patient being guided by signs such as this to the proper testing site. At the time of this photograph's creation, Kansas's total number of cases stood at nearly 30,000, with over 4,500 in Sedgwick County alone. Typically, Kansans had to wait 9 to 14 days before receiving their results due to backlogs created by high turnouts and too few testing locations. -
2020-08-03Staying active during corona
As someone who is very active I found it hard to sit at home and do nothing, therefore I decided to pick up my tennis racquet and go hit. -
2020-08-04My Gratefulness Notebook
I chose this object because it really represents the way I have been able to use this pandemic to change my mindset. I received the journal at a time when everything in my life was changing really fast, and not in a positive way. There was so much loss and pain. I started filling one page of this journal every evening with things I am thankful for, and though it was really difficult at first, I found that it grew easier with time, and now I am finding things to be thankful for in every situation. This pandemic reminds us that we have to be thankful for what we have in every moment, because we never know when that could be taken away, but also that when it seems like everything has been taken away, there is still many things in our lives left to hold onto. -
2020-06-02Hope Turns to Disappointment: Starkey Reopens...Then Closes Again
As spring gave way to summer in 2020, Starkey gradually opened its day programs for its persons-served in phases, so as to ensure their safety as much as possible. These emails dated June 2 to July 14, 2020, offer a look into a seemingly steady and successful reopening process, while illustrating the patchwork nature of Kansas's reopening, and how individual entities charted their own course while following the state's suggested guidelines. Perhaps most tellingly, the final email conveys the sudden pullback brought about by the virus's continued surge, when the day programs closed yet again due to rapidly rising COVID-19 cases in Sedgwick County, Kansas. Taken together, these items give substance to a quickly deteriorating situation that came to characterize the COVID-19 experience in Sedgwick County during the COVID summer of 2020. -
2020-06-15Connections Newsletter: How a Special Needs Community Weathers the COVID-19 Storm
Given the unique challenges presented by COVID-19, special needs programs, such as Starkey, Inc. in Wichita, Kansas, needed to make equally unique adaptations so as to safeguard an already vulnerable community. This Connections newsletter from the summer of 2020 highlights some of those adaptations from early in the pandemic. These included local food donations to the various residences, the closure of day programs, homemade mask-making drives to make up for the mask shortage, and even visits from wildlife experts from a local zoo, who brought with them a sloth, a lynx, and a penguin for the residents to enjoy. Overall, this source provides a more in-depth look into how a community like Starkey dealt with the virus's early outbreak in ways that had to be uniquely suited to the needs of those they served. -
2020-07-27Wichita School Enrollment Proceeds Under COVID's Long Shadow
Upon rejecting the governor's order to delay the start of Kansas schools until after Labor Day, 2020, the decision as to if and when to reopen fell upon the state's individual school districts. Although Wichita school district USD 259 ultimately decided to delay the start of the academic year until after the holiday, enrollment proceeded under a cloud of uncertainty and unanswered question for students, parents, and teachers alike. This photograph points to that reality by advising all affected parties as to where the latest information can be found regarding an extremely delicate and fluid situation that left students, families, and teachers across the country wondering how something so routine as the new school year could be navigated safely in the face of a potentially deadly virus. -
2020-07-27Masked and Contactless Service
Following Wichita's municipal ordinance overriding the Sedgwick County Commission's decision to forego the governor's mask mandate, citizens were required to wear protective face coverings in all public spaces within the city limits. Electronic billboards and marquees, such as this one from west Wichita's Credit Union of America, announced that all customers must comply with this order should they wish to conduct business within their environs, while at the same time offering contactless methods for various bank transactions. These photographs underscore the urgency of both masks and social distancing, two of the most effective anti-COVID countermeasures, in combating a rapidly accelerating outbreak that city and Kansas state officials struggled to corral during the summer of 2020. -
2020-07-27Confusion on the Plains
These screenshots of the Kansas Health Secretary's Twitter account highlight the mixed messages that have come to characterize the efforts to combat the coronavirus in the summer of 2020. Just days before, the virus had been "gaining speed," and Kansas was "heading in the wrong direction," but by July 26th, the state's infection rate appeared to be "leveling off a bit." Although he presses Kansans to adhere strictly to all mitigation practices, these messages reflect the jarring effects of instantaneous communication and data analysis as medical professionals and ordinary citizens alike struggle to accurately comprehend the real-time scope and spread of COVID-19; a disease that had been completely unknown just a year before. -
2020-07-21Different Restaurants. Different Policies
These photographs present two different policy approaches taken by two different west Wichita restaurants. The "patchwork" of policies that came to define the United States' COVID-19 response also manifested itself in individual businesses, with some area restaurants, like Ziggy's Pizza, proclaiming that they're open for both indoor and outdoor service, while several blocks away, Chick-Fil-A's sign declares that their dining room remained closed. Both taken on the same day, these pictures represent the myriad messages and signals given by governments and businesses that added to the confusion and uncertainty that characterized the COVID-19 pandemic in Wichita. -
2020-07-21A Packed Gym Parking Lot
This photo shows a nearly full Northwest YMCA parking lot in west Wichita, Kansas. Despite rising case numbers, Sedgwick County still permitted bars, restaurants, night clubs, and gyms to continue operating, and at the time of this photograph's creation, local news networks were reporting that a public health order aimed at re-closing at least some of these establishments was imminent. Establishments such as gyms and night clubs proved to be fertile ground for viral transmission due to the difficulty in maintaining sufficient social distancing, thus the reason public health officials in Sedgwick County cited them as one of the key drivers of Wichita's virus surge in the summer of 2020. -
2020-07-21Lobby's Open...If You Have a Mask
After the mayor's and City Council's mask mandate went into effect, Wichitans were required to wear masks in all public indoor spaces, like this west Wichita bank. These photos reflect how this particular business adapted to the new mandate, requiring its customers to don a protective mask or face covering upon entering the building, or use the drive thru service should they lack one. Virtually unseen prior to the pandemic, masks became an integral mitigation tool during the pandemic that caused both minor and major changes to the look and conduct of everyday life. -
2020-07-21Local Businesses Still Need Support
The slogan "Stay Strong, Wichita" proved quite common during the city's lockdown in March and April, but became less so following Kansas's quick reopening. By July of 2020, Wichita, Sedgwick County, and the state itself grappled with rapidly rising COVID case numbers, prompting many public health officials to emphasize more emphatically their case to slow and roll back Kansas's reopening. Amidst rising illness, divided state and local government, economic pain and uncertainty, and trepidation at reopening Kansas schools in the coming weeks, this local west Wichita car wash exhorts citizens to support local businesses and to "Stay Strong, ICT." Note: "ICT" are the call letters for Wichita's Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (and its predecessor, Mid-Continent) and is a common term of endearment used by Wichitans in reference to their city. -
2020-07-21Healthcare "Warriors"
On top of billboards, signs, and store discounts, this photo of a mail-order catalog shows one more way how US businesses recognized public healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and integrated that recognition into their business models. The catalog marketed this particular item as a way of showing patriotic support for those dealing with the COVID crisis. Also, by declaring medical professionals to be "warriors," this advertisement fit into a fairly common view held by many, including those in federal, state, and local government, that the US response to COVID-19 was analogous to a military campaign. -
2020-07-16A Country In Tatters
Taken after a series of thunderstorms swept through Wichita, Kansas, in mid-July, 2020, this image strikes a symbolic parallel to the feelings and emotions felt by countless Americans during the pandemic crisis of 2020. Ravaged by the perfect storm of a ravenous and lethal virus, racial unrest, a hobbled economy, and a contentious election cycle, the United States of 2020 appeared to be a country in tatters amidst a sea of confusion, uncertainty, and partisan strife. -
2020-07-16Some Churches Open...And Others Stay Closed
Since the lock down, some churches in Kansas had filed lawsuits against the governor and her administration's orders to restrict large public gatherings and advocate social distancing. With those orders largely removed as a result of a compromise package agreed to by the governor and the GOP-led legislature, many churches reopened without restrictions of any kind. These photographs prove that the converse was also a reality, with other churches, like this one in west Wichita, opting to remain virtual, especially as the virus surged across the state in the summer of 2020. Without video conference and social media technology, such religious gatherings would have proved impossible. -
2020-07-08A Toothless Mandate: Sedgwick County's Mask Order, July 8 and 9, 2020
After the city of Wichita decreed compulsory mask-wearing, the Sedgwick County Local Health officer issued an emergency order overriding the County Commission's decision to not make masks in public mandatory. The first order states that no penalties will enforce the mandate's provisions, while the second, issued the very next day, adds religious institutions to the list of exempted parties; a hot button issue that saw Governor Laura Kelly's administration besieged by lawsuits and accusations of abuse of power during the statewide lockdown. Therefore, these texts are products of the political tensions that hobbled Kansas's response efforts in the face of a surging COVID-19 crisis, with state and local leaders, most if not all of whom identified as Republicans, opting for non-existent counter-measures that prevented "executive overreach," but allowed the virus to flourish. -
2020-07-10See You Later Rather Than Sooner: Wichita Theaters Still Closed
Capturing the same Warren Theater documented in the items "May the Force Be With You, Wichita" and "The Show's Over...For Now," these two photos clearly reveal that, despite Kansas's hurried attempts to restore normal economic activity, the show was still over four months after Regal closed the Warren Theater in west Wichita, Kansas. The sign expresses that the Warren misses its patrons like "popcorn misses butter," while the second photo captures a still empty parking lot on a hot Friday afternoon in July. The duration of the theater's closure is made even more evident by the weeds bordering the parking stalls in the foreground, some of which stood several feet tall. -
2020-07-09Wichita's Healthcare Heroes
This banner honors the work performed by the doctors, nurses, and staff of the west Wichita Wesley Medical Center Emergency Room at 13th and Tyler Road. Signs like these proved fairly common across the city, therefore adding to the wide variety of expressions of gratitude displayed across the world for those in the medical professions who have dealt with COVID-19's harsh reality. Nonetheless, at the time this photograph was taken, Sedgwick County announced that its hospital space and ICU availability was beginning to encounter greater stress. After a hasty re-opening and a lack of political will to enforce and maintain mitigation measures, COVID-19 cases surged across the state, with patients from the county and surrounding rural areas lacking direct access to medical facilities being brought to Wichita-area hospitals for treatment. -
2020-07-10YMCA and Waterpark Reopen...And COVID-19 Kicks Into High Gear
YMCAs reopened with restrictions beginning on May 18, although in-person group classes did not reconvene. This photo shows a fair number of vehicles at this YMCA facility in west Wichita, Kansas, and while the city's late June order closed municipal pools and water parks, this did not apply to aquatic centers managed by private entities. Nevertheless, patrons appear to be spaced out on the water slide, with a lifeguard at the top managing the queue. These photos reveal how people in Wichita were attempting to confront the pandemic while retaining some semblance of normalcy in their daily lives, but on the same day these pictures were taken, the Kansas Department of Health and the Environment announced 1,000 new cases in the state, bringing its total to 18,611, with 2,074 of those in Sedgwick County. A week before, the state's total was 15,919. -
2020-07-07Citizens Protest at Wichita Mayor's Residence
This news article from KSN, a Kansas news network, highlights the aggravation of political tensions that have only gotten worse with COVID-19's disruption of US society. In a move reminiscent of protestor tactics in St. Louis, Missouri, a group of Wichitans, disgusted with the mayor's successful push to implement city-wide mask use, staged a protest outside his residence, with its organizer even advocating, should participants choose, to exercise "Second Amendment rights" as a sign of protest. Although not a large demonstration, this article nevertheless adds to the emerging portrait of a country and its communities cleaved by politics and a pandemic. -
2020-07-07Wichita City Council Ordinance No. 51-307: Facemasks Required In Wichita, Kansas
This Wichita ordinance, passed on July 3, 2020, overrode the Sedgwick County Commission's vote declining to implement Kansas Governor Laura Kelly's executive order making masks mandatory statewide; a vote that was held the previous day. Due to an accelerating positive test rate in both Sedgwick County and Wichita, the Wichita mayor convened a special session of the City Council to mandate in the city what has become one of the most effective preventative weapons against COVID-19. This order specifies the necessity for masks in public, when citizens must wear them, and penalties for non-compliance. Moreover, this order stands as an artifact of the divisive politicization that has come to dominate much of the United States's coronavirus response, especially in states like Kansas, where a Democrat executive, like Governor Kelly or Mayor Whipple, has repeatedly clashed with a Republican-dominated legislature or county commission. -
2020-07-06Wichita Must Mask Up
After the Sedgwick County Commission voted 3-2 to not implement the governor's order requiring Kansans to wear masks in public places where social distancing was not possible, Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple convened an emergency session of the City Council to debate and vote on a city-wide ordnance that would override the county's authority . By a vote of 4-3, Mayor Whipple's ordnance passed and became effective immediately, thus prompting local businesses to post signs like this one on their establishments. This sign reflects the first time during the pandemic that mask-wearing became an enforced mandate in Wichita, as the city struggled to control a virus that seemed to be at controllable levels just a few weeks before this photo was taken. -
2020-06-28A Summer of Pathogens and Dust: Saharan Dust Sweeps Through Kansas
Amidst COVID-19's rising case numbers throughout the state, a massive plume of dust from the Sahara Desert swept across the Atlantic, the American South, and into the Great Plains, as seen in the gray-brownish haze in these photographs. The dust plume's arrival, while not an uncommon meteorological event, nevertheless prompted the Kansas Department of Health and the Environment to issue an air quality warning for vulnerable people, as it struggled to grapple with Kansas's growing COVID case load. -
2020-07-02The Order That Wasn't: Kansas Executive Order 20-52
As COVID-19 case numbers accelerated in Kansas in the summer of 2020, Governor Laura Kelly issued this executive order declaring that Kansans must wear masks in public spaces, especially in places where the 6-foot distance rule was not possible, beginning on Friday, July 3, 2020. However, this order proved empty, since it allowed for local county authorities to enforce it, with several counties, including Sedgwick, which is home to the state's largest city, Wichita, to either opt out of the order entirely, or declare it a "strong recommendation." This document reflects the partisan politics that stymied Kansas's COVID-19 response efforts, as Democratic Governor Kelly eventually relinquished her statewide executive authority to direct the anti-virus effort in favor of a decentralized, locally-driven patchwork response favored by the state GOP, which had earlier passed legislation to curb her executive powers and threatened lawsuits against what they perceived to be a gross over-reach of executive power. -
2020-06-25Protect Your Fellow Citizens...Please.
Affixed to the jungle gym at Sunset Park in west Wichita, Kansas, this sign encourages Wichitans to protect each other and prevent COVID-19's spread by adopting the listed measures. This photo was taken against the backdrop of rising case numbers in Kansas, as well as in neighboring Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas, as local authorities in Sedgwick County opted to continue re-opening without imposing any restrictions to mitigate the virus's transmission. Given the local government's "hands-off" approach, the effectiveness of any and all mitigation efforts rested solely with citizens' willingness to cooperate. -
2020-06-25The Sound of Silence: COVID Summer 2020
On June 24, 2020, the city of Wichita, Kansas, announced that it would not open any of the city's municipal water parks, splash pads, or swimming pools for the duration of the summer. Pools like west Wichita's Harvest Park, shown here, would normally be teeming with people on hot summer days, but COVID-19 defied public health officials' predictions of a summer remission, with case numbers surging across the South and Central Plains. Kansas suffered an influx of summer COVID infections due in part to a politically-driven, decentralized re-opening plan that devolved authority to county commissions and local officials, while relegating what had once been mandatory state executive orders to mere "suggestions." With Kansas and surrounding states grappling with widespread illnesses, the summer of 2020 was marked by empty pools and filling hospitals. -
2020-03-16Starkey, Inc During the Pandemic: How a Kansas Special Needs Community Responded to COVID-19
This series of emails from March through May of 2020 details the measures taken by Starkey, a Wichita, Kansas, adult special needs community living program, to safeguard their vulnerable residents from infection. Among the topics covered in this set are protective measures, social distancing, day program closures, containment of COVID outbreaks in the residencies, and Starkey's phased plan for gradually returning their community members (known as "persons-served" in the documents) to a semblance of normalcy. Moreover, these emails provide a glimpse into how individual businesses and essential services reacted and adjusted to Kansas's statewide directives. -
2020-05-19Drive-Thru Testing Ramps Up in Kansas
The Healthcore Clinic's mobile COVID-19 drive-thru testing station at the Wichita State Metroplex in east Wichita, Kansas, on the afternoon of May 19, 2020. One of three stations in the city, the Metroplex site had only been in operation for eight days at the time of this photo's creation, thus reflecting the slow implementation of available testing since the beginning of the outbreak, and the absolute necessity for it to contain the coronavirus's spread. Moreover, those being tested are doing so by their own volition, as there was no mandate from government authorities requiring compulsory testing. Aaron Peterka, Northeastern University -
05/02/2020"This Too Shall Pass"
This sign from a local Wichita counseling firm reflects the enormous psychological burden that the pandemic has placed upon people's mental health, with lockdowns, job loss, financial uncertainty, and fear of the future fueling depression and anxiety among many in both the USA and the world. #NortheasternJOTPY -
05/02/2020Save Lives. Stay Inside.
This particular message in east Wichita, created by Lamar Trailers, calls upon citizens to save lives by complying with the state's "shelter-at-home" order. #NortheasternJOTPY -
05/02/2020"For Those At the Front"
An electronic billboard in east Wichita praises healthcare professionals for their continued efforts in battling the COVID-19 pandemic. The language used in this sign is reminiscent of the gratitude extended to GIs in the post-9/11 era, especially during the Iraq War, thus reflecting the pandemic's growing impact that will cement it as one of the country's, and the world's, watershed moments. #NortheasternJOTPY -
04/05/2020Show's Over...For Now
As a result of the statewide lockdown measures, all theaters, including the Warren and its always-popular IMAX, closed in an effort to halt the pandemic's march across the city. #NortheasternJOTPY -
04/03/2020A Church's Prescription for COVID-19
This local church offers just a single word for how to combat the growing virus threat. Aaron Peterka, Northeastern University