Kansas city Mayor Quinton Lucas along with KCMO Health Department Director Dr. Rex Archer and Emergency Services Manager Dr. Erica Carney today at a noon press conference on the south steps of City Hall offered additional details as to why Kansas City’s stay-at-home order to fight the spread of the Corona virus has been until May 15th from the original April 28th date.

After conferring with health directors from across the nine county, Western Missouri and Eastern Kansas area,  Lucas said the decision was made to extend the deadline in hopes of continuing to flatten the Curve and the spread of the Corona virus.

The virus is predicted to peak in the Kansas City region between April 24th and April 28th. The May 15th date was chosen as it allows for a cooling off period of sorts.

“It’s not an issue about, in my opinion politics or any ancillary concerns,” Lucas said.   “Its about keeping people safe. We need to take more steps to make sure our community is safe and to make sure we do not see a rapid increase in re-infections.”

Kansas City Missouri health department director Dr Rex Archer took the opportunity to chide not only the media present but also the public at Large for not being masked during the outbreak.
” I want to be the very first to make it very clear I told you so. We’ve been talking about this for 20 years and if we had spent even one-tenth of the damage that’s been done to the economy right now over the last 10 years, we wouldn’t have this disaster,” Archer said, comparing the outbreak to the SARS outbreak of 2003.

Archer even eluded to additional shutdowns over the next 12 to 24 months despite the current stay at home extension to May 15th.

Mayor Lucas, when asked about the hodgepodge of different dates, referring to Kansas Governor Laura Kelly’s May 3rd deadline, Lucas said,
“the situation in Kansas City Missouri right now is in many ways very different from that in Fulton Missouri or in Hutchinson Kansas.”

During his 3 p.m. press briefing, Missouri governor Mike Parson also imposed a May 3rd deadline for the state of Missouri.

Lucas responded to questions about the financial hit the city’s small business community has taken since the imposed shutdown. ” I’m proud We introduced the local funding throughout cap immediately prior to the stay-at-home order being issued.”
That fund, managed by Alt-Cap was depleted within hours after applications began to be accepted.

Lucas pledged to continue to work with state and federal funding agencies including the local philanthropic community in order to help as many small businesses as possible during the shutdown.