Name: Dr. Ahmed and her epis are trying to save you, Kansas - Kansas Reflector
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Dr. Ahmed and her epis are trying to save you, Kansas - Kansas Reflector

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7:05CommentaryKansas State Epidemiologist Farah Ahmed spent her childhood in Kansas and Missouri. She returned to Kansas after earning her PhD through the University of Texas System. (KDHE)Looking ahead to a long weekend celebrating workers, let’s pay respects to one category of laborer most of us probably never thought about until the last few months: the epidemiologists of Kansas.Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t even know there was an official state epidemiologist. But of course there is — Farah Ahmed, one of a dozen epidemiologists and more than a dozen other professionals in the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s office of .Ahmed recently showed exceptional grace with a couple of Kansas Legislators.Back on Aug. 12, Ahmed gave an overview of her department’s work to the Legislature’s , convened to deal with the COVID-19 crisis.Among her office’s most basic services is being available whenever doctors need help.“We answer phones — 24/7, 365, there’s always at least one epidemiologist during normal times,” Ahmed said. “And during COVID times I think we rotate on four epis” — epidemiologists’ cute nickname for each other belies the seriousness of their work — “on call at all times so that we can answer questions from local health departments and providers.”Her testimony was an info-packed crash course in the complexities of managing public health not only in the best of times but also now, as the state’s death count escalated over the summer.Afterward, , a Republican from Parker, .The one-sheet explained how, starting Aug. 1, businesses could assist with contact tracing (a standard public health tool that epidemiologists have used for decades without incident until legislators pretended to be epidemiologists themselves, passing a bill that .)“If the average person read your handout they would think that it was a requirement on a business,” Tyson said, suggesting KDHE was forcing businesses to narc out employees or customers with COVID-19.Average person, here’s the flier. What do you think businesses are required to do?Anyone who is especially concerned about COVID-19 or wants to understand how government really works could get up to speed by watching Ahmed’s presentation to our esteemed legislators.You’ll come away with new appreciation for your epis, and the complex infrastructure required to monitor an entire state’s health.Eye-opening for me was the small army of folks in different professions who are required to report suspected outbreaks of a long — not just stuff any of us might catch, your basic Lyme disease, chickenpox, hepatitis or (sorry) STDs — but also really scary stuff:COVID-19 falls into that “newly recognized disease” category, and Ahmed recapped the painful summer in somewhat agonizing detail.If you’re so inclined, I’ve cued up the . (Her part is crisp and clear, but the audio of legislators’ questions is barely audible, which is some sort of poetic justice.) In about an hour, you, too, can be as knowledgeable as Kansas legislators:&nbsp;At one point, , a Republican from Wichita who in March called Gov. Laura Kelly’s school closures in response to the pandemic “,” asked Ahmed whether her office could begin reporting underlying symptoms for people counted as COVID-19 deaths.“It can be done. It would take some manpower,” Ahmed said. “I’m making a note.”(In response to my follow-up email, Ahmed explained the scope of that manpower: “For each person, we would need to request not only medical records from any hospitals they were seen at, but also try to figure out who their primary care physician is and request records from their primary care physician. Having done this type of analysis in the past for other diseases, our experience is that this would need to be contracted out to a company, takes several months to a year to complete, and comes with a hefty price tag.”)Sen. Tyson reinforced what her colleague was getting at.“We’ve also heard the and we also have people in the medical industry that have told us that individuals did not die of COVID-19 but they are being counted as such cases,” Tyson said.Ahmed explained all of the steps public health departments might take to verify a cause of death. Workers in her office could compare what’s on a person’s death certificate to what’s been reported to KDHE by the deceased’s doctor or a coroner. Or someone from the vital statistics office could call the doctor to ask if that doctor knew of the COVID-19 diagnosis or the underlying causes.Ahmed was too polite to put it this way, but KDHE doesn’t make people’s death certificates. Physicians and coroners do. So if Tyson’s constituents are that worried about inflated COVID-19 numbers, they should call their doctors.Meanwhile, here’s a thank you to Ahmed and her team.Someday when we’re on the other side of this, the scientists will spend a lot of time studying what they could have done differently. They’ll make a point of learning from their mistakes.The politicians won’t be smart enough, or brave enough, to admit they made mistakes.Xby C.J. Janovy, August 31, 2020by C.J. Janovy, August 31, 2020Looking ahead to a long weekend celebrating workers, let’s pay respects to one category of laborer most of us probably never thought about until the last few months: the epidemiologists of Kansas.Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t even know there was an official state epidemiologist. But of course there is — Farah Ahmed, one of a dozen epidemiologists and more than a dozen other professionals in the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s office of .Ahmed recently showed exceptional grace with a couple of Kansas Legislators.Back on Aug. 12, Ahmed gave an overview of her department’s work to the Legislature’s , convened to deal with the COVID-19 crisis.Among her office’s most basic services is being available whenever doctors need help.“We answer phones — 24/7, 365, there’s always at least one epidemiologist during normal times,” Ahmed said. “And during COVID times I think we rotate on four epis” — epidemiologists’ cute nickname for each other belies the seriousness of their work — “on call at all times so that we can answer questions from local health departments and providers.”Her testimony was an info-packed crash course in the complexities of managing public health not only in the best of times but also now, as the state’s death count escalated over the summer.Afterward, , a Republican from Parker, .The one-sheet explained how, starting Aug. 1, businesses could assist with contact tracing (a standard public health tool that epidemiologists have used for decades without incident until legislators pretended to be epidemiologists themselves, passing a bill that .)“If the average person read your handout they would think that it was a requirement on a business,” Tyson said, suggesting KDHE was forcing businesses to narc out employees or customers with COVID-19.Average person, here’s the flier. What do you think businesses are required to do?Anyone who is especially concerned about COVID-19 or wants to understand how government really works could get up to speed by watching Ahmed’s presentation to our esteemed legislators.You’ll come away with new appreciation for your epis, and the complex infrastructure required to monitor an entire state’s health.Eye-opening for me was the small army of folks in different professions who are required to report suspected outbreaks of a long — not just stuff any of us might catch, your basic Lyme disease, chickenpox, hepatitis or (sorry) STDs — but also really scary stuff:COVID-19 falls into that “newly recognized disease” category, and Ahmed recapped the painful summer in somewhat agonizing detail.If you’re so inclined, I’ve cued up the . (Her part is crisp and clear, but the audio of legislators’ questions is barely audible, which is some sort of poetic justice.) In about an hour, you, too, can be as knowledgeable as Kansas legislators:&nbsp;At one point, , a Republican from Wichita who in March called Gov. Laura Kelly’s school closures in response to the pandemic “,” asked Ahmed whether her office could begin reporting underlying symptoms for people counted as COVID-19 deaths.“It can be done. It would take some manpower,” Ahmed said. “I’m making a note.”(In response to my follow-up email, Ahmed explained the scope of that manpower: “For each person, we would need to request not only medical records from any hospitals they were seen at, but also try to figure out who their primary care physician is and request records from their primary care physician. Having done this type of analysis in the past for other diseases, our experience is that this would need to be contracted out to a company, takes several months to a year to complete, and comes with a hefty price tag.”)Sen. Tyson reinforced what her colleague was getting at.“We’ve also heard the and we also have people in the medical industry that have told us that individuals did not die of COVID-19 but they are being counted as such cases,” Tyson said.Ahmed explained all of the steps public health departments might take to verify a cause of death. Workers in her office could compare what’s on a person’s death certificate to what’s been reported to KDHE by the deceased’s doctor or a coroner. Or someone from the vital statistics office could call the doctor to ask if that doctor knew of the COVID-19 diagnosis or the underlying causes.Ahmed was too polite to put it this way, but KDHE doesn’t make people’s death certificates. Physicians and coroners do. So if Tyson’s constituents are that worried about inflated COVID-19 numbers, they should call their doctors.Meanwhile, here’s a thank you to Ahmed and her team.Someday when we’re on the other side of this, the scientists will spend a lot of time studying what they could have done differently. They’ll make a point of learning from their mistakes.The politicians won’t be smart enough, or brave enough, to admit they made mistakes.is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: . Follow Kansas Reflector on and .Copy to clipboard1RepublishOur stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.

7:05CommentaryKansas State Epidemiologist Farah Ahmed spent her childhood in Kansas and Missouri. She returned to Kansas after earning her PhD through the University of Texas System. (KDHE)Looking ahead to a long weekend celebrating workers, let’s pay respects to one category of laborer most of us probably never thought about until the last few months: the epidemiologists of Kansas.Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t even know there was an official state epidemiologist. But of course there is — Farah Ahmed, one of a dozen epidemiologists and more than a dozen other professionals in the Kansas...

Dr. Ahmed and her epis are trying to save you, Kansas - Kansas Reflector

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