Governor Laura Kelly will unveil the plan for reopening Kansas Thursday during a special address.
The address will be broadcast at 6:30 p.m.. Meanwhile, during her regularly scheduled Wednesday afternoon press conference, the governor announced that tomorrow morning, she will sign a new declaration of emergency effective through May 14 which allows the state to continue to receive federal assistance.
The governor will also have to extend some executive orders to replace the ones that would expire under the old declaration. However, the stay-at-home order is not being extended by the declaration or executive orders. The Legislative Coordinating Council can extend it another 30 days to June 13.
Kelly is expected to announce on Thursday the lifting of stay at home orders statewide while still setting limits on public gatherings and releasing guidelines for counties to follow. The governor says an important key to reopening the state is expanding testing capacity, especially to rural and isolated areas of the state where access to testing and medical care can be limited.
The governor announced that the state has acquired 500,000 Covid-19 test collection kits that are federally approved from an overseas source. The first 5,000 have cleared customs and will arrive in Kansas soon.
The kits will arrive in batches of 10,000 every week until fully delivered. The federal government is also sending the state an additional 50,000 kits.
