The Johnson County Department of Health and Environment unveiled a new online portal Wednesday where residents can voluntarily report both negative and positive results of at-home COVID-19 antigen tests.
Why it matters: JCDHE says the self-reports will give the department a better understanding about the spread of the virus in order to gauge if the number of cases is increasing or decreasing in the community.
- If enough people submit results, the department may report the results to health officials and/or post them on their COVID-19 dashboard.
How to report your results: Got to the self-report portal and click on “Report at-home antigen test results.” (There’s also a button in Spanish.)
- From there, residents will answer a quick questionnaire about:
- when their test was administered,
- what the results were,
- where the test was bought
- and some demographic information.
- A picture of the at-home test can also be uploaded and attached to the questionnaire but is not required.
Background: The launch of the portal comes as broader official efforts to contact trace are being scaled back due to the overwhelming number of cases caused by the Omicron variant.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment announced it will stop contact tracing for COVID-19 at the end of this month.
- Officials said the change was brought on by a surge in new cases, coupled with a significant drop in information being shared by the public.
- Earlier this month, JCDHE announced it too would no longer provide contact tracing support for local school districts.
