Kansas Department of Health and Environment

GARDEN CITY, Kansas — For almost three months, people living in a mobile home neighborhood just east of Garden City’s limits haven’t been able to drink their tap water.

Residents could boil their water to drink and cook. But on June 30, a new health order advised households not to use the water for drinking, cooking, making baby formula or brushing teeth.

A Lenexa lab is marketing coronavirus antibody tests that are not federally approved as a way for nursing homes to figure out which workers don’t pose a threat to residents.

State health officials and medical experts say the claims that the tests would provide facilities peace of mind are “wrong” and “risky.” The president of Great Plains Laboratory Inc., William Shaw, canceled an interview with the Kansas News Service. In an email, he said he had not reviewed the sales pitch before it went out.

Lawrence, KANSAS — The looming expiration date on Kansas’ statewide stay-at-home order worries Mary and Gary House of southeast Kansas.

Though they’re staying in as much as possible now, once life returns to normal that will change. Gary, age 79, is an attorney who defends criminal cases in Chautauqua, Montgomery and Elk counties.

He thinks of the exposure to the novel coronavirus he could face in a single jury selection.

“They may bring in 70 or 80 prospective jurors to question,” he said. “So, you’re just around a lot of people.”

LAWRENCE, KANSAS — Herington Municipal Hospital got fed up with long waits for lab results that would tell its patients with respiratory symptoms whether they have the novel coronavirus.

So when a sales representative called the 25-bed hospital in rural central Kansas offering tests that produce results in less than half an hour, Herington ordered 500.

“We answered the phone on the right day,” CEO Isabel Schmedemann said in an interview this week. “I wish we had ordered more.”

One hundred people in her community have already come in for the test.