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Liz Bickel | all galleries >> Places Around the World: Multiple Galleries >> Around the World: Multiple Galleries >> Heart of America > Close to Home
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24-Aug-2008 copyright Elizabeth Bickel

Close to Home

Overlooking the Missouri River

Upscale suburban community: 310 luxury single family residences
(some of which are mansions like the one shown in the photo),
700 deluxe apartment units, and 630,000 square feet of premium commercial space; including restaurants & boutiques, a spa, a school, office complexes, & 2 hotels. It is a city within a city.

Also included is a very upscale senior retirement community: complete with “elegantly appointed apartments, gracious services and amenities, beautiful and welcoming community spaces and stunning settings.” To quote the senior living management: “Independent and assisted living apartment homes in a comfortable, safe, and well-designed community to meet your needs now and in the future. Enjoy sumptuous cuisine with restaurant-style dining or watch your favorite movie in our in-house theater. Play cards, shoot pool or just unwind on the patio of the City Lights Club with a breathtaking view of the Kansas City skyline.”

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Update: May 09, 2020, 00:15 GMT
USA
1,321,374 confirmed cases of COVID-19
78,577 American Deaths

Note: 28,751 new cases and 1,649 new deaths in the United States

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The above mentioned “luxury” senior community is now the hotbed for a growing cluster of COVIID-19 among staff and residents. Coronavirus can infect anyone anywhere. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor or where you live. Unfortunately, if you are 60 years old or above, your risk for COVID and a bad outcome increase. The residents of this retirement community are older. The infected staff (most who do not live in this overall community) are not. The older victims seem to be the most seriously ill.

"We can't now say how far the outbreak has gone yet," Kansas City Mayor Lucas said. "We're not able to say how far in the community this has been. This is different because of the volume of people that has been impacted." When referring to “community”, the mayor was referring to more than just the senior living part of this city within a city. Nor just this the entire upscale community within the city. His concern is with all of Kansas City and its residents.

Background: On March 25th, the director of the exclusive senior living community confirmed that a member of the staff tested positive for the Coronavirus. “That person has not, physically, been in the building since Friday, March 20.” The employee, who tested positive, was said to not have any role at the facility where they were in direct contact with residents. The facility also noted it has been following CDC guidelines, starting with employee screenings on March 12. Shortly after that time, all non-essential staff started to work from home. Still eight weeks later, 7 employees - plus numerous residents – are now testing positive for coronavirus….

Rex Archer, M.D (head of the Kansas City Health Department) Retweeted “MO refuses to allow any state licensed nursing home to get tests for coronavirus unless it already has 2 confirmed cases. That's like the fire dept saying it won't come to your house unless at least 2 rooms are on fire. 80 MO nursing homes have residents w/the virus.”

With cases of COVID in this facility having officially exceeded Missouri state minimum, all senior residents now finally qualify to getting tested. It is only became possible after multi people (who all also happened to work with the seniors) were separately determined to have coronavirus. This is an example of how local tracing of disease has helped. More testing and tracing is now needed. Time will tell how this story continues to develop. Despite the senior facility being considered a cluster of COVID, testing will continue to move slowly because of a limited ability to test. The impact of this cluster could be widespread far beyond the senior community. Nevertheless, this localized hotspot for coronavirus could be part of a greater community and not just the retirement community and those who work there.

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The photo above is an older one from happier times.
It is a 5 million dollar, private home.
The rest of the community (mentioned in the first paragraph) was built for & around the housing development that first started with this one beautiful mansion. I have a lot of good memories connected to the community from before COVID-19. Sadly, those memories are now being overshadowed by the pandemic…

Canon EOS-1D Mark III ,Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
1/1250s f/6.3 at 90.0mm iso400 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time24-Aug-2008 08:22:44
MakeCanon
ModelCanon EOS-1D Mark III
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length90 mm
Exposure Time1/1250 sec
Aperturef/6.3
ISO Equivalent400
Exposure Bias0.00
White Balance0
Metering Modematrix (5)
JPEG Quality (3)
Exposure Programaperture priority (3)
Focus Distance

other sizes: small medium original auto
comment
Nick Paoni09-May-2020 19:40
What an amazing house, although somehow "house" doesn't quite fit here.
Tom LeRoy09-May-2020 13:13
Lovely mansion. If we had enough testing and early enough we would not be in this situation by now. V
Range View 09-May-2020 03:26
It's certainly a lovely mansion. V
Thanks for the daily updates Liz, there's still a long way to go with this situation.
Barbara
joseantonio09-May-2020 03:15
very nice capture of that luxury mansion.V
Hank Vander Velde09-May-2020 00:44
Sadly or perhaps fortunately, the virus doesn't distinguish between rich and the poor, though it is usually the poor that suffer most. It is nevertheless a terrible state of affairs irrespective of one's status and/or one's financial abilities.