Story at a glance
- Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman, Jr. revealed he had coronavirus weeks before attending a meeting with the state governor and other officials.
- Ryckman is the highest-ranking official in the state who has tested positive for COVID-19.
- A spokesperson for the Democratic governor said she would be tested.
Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr. was hospitalized for a week after testing positive for the coronavirus on July 13, he wrote in an email to colleagues on Aug. 6. But the Republican lawmaker didn’t disclose this before attending a public meeting with other officials and the state governor just days earlier.
“Speaker Ryckman’s decision to attend the State Finance Council meeting after being released from the hospital, while concealing his diagnosis from those of us in the room and taking his mask off, was reckless and dangerous,” Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said in a statement reported by the Kansas City Star. “As elected officials, we have a unique responsibility to set the right example for the people of Kansas, and to follow the commonsense guidance from medical experts. While I’m dismayed by his actions, I wish Speaker Ryckman good health and I’m glad he’s on the road to recovery.”
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A spokesperson for Kelly told the Associated Press (AP) that the governor would get tested “as soon as we can set it up.” Ryckman, the highest-ranking official in the state to test positive for COVID-19, said he had self-isolated for 16 days after the start of symptoms and was not contagious at the time of the State Finance Council meeting, which was held at the Statehouse. The Kansas City Star reports that officials generally meet in the Old Supreme Court Room, the largest committee room in the building, and sit several feet apart.
“I was hospitalized, have followed doctor’s orders, and self-isolated during that time,” Ryckman wrote, according to the Kansas City Star. “I am now past what doctors consider the contagious stage and am on the road to recovery.”
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment website says an individual with a confirmed case can leave isolation 10 days from the onset of symptoms or 72 hours after fever is gone without the use of fever-reducing medicine and there has been a significant improvement in symptoms, depending on which is longer. There have been documented exceptions and a recent study of dozens of COVID-19 patients in China found that symptomatic patients shed the virus for a median of 19 days.
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