TOPEKA — The Kansas Department of Health and Environment released a retooled list Wednesday of site-specific COVID-19 clusters that identified outbreaks of five cases or more occurring within the previous 14 days.
The original format for the KDHE report launched Sept. 9 defined clusters as businesses with at least 20 cases or as events and groups linked to five cases or more. It also included outbreaks that added as few as one new case within the prior 28 days. Those thresholds were questioned by journalists as insufficient and denounced by businesses as excessive.
In response, KDHE eliminated the distinction for purposes of this report — setting the benchmark in the new version at five regardless of locale.