TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on Wednesday imposed stronger coronavirus testing rules for several hundred state-licensed nursing homes that will have most of them testing their employees twice a week.

The executive order on testing comes as Kansas waits to receive its first shipments of a vaccine made by Pfizer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to consider within days whether to authorize emergency use of the two-dose vaccine. If it does, the state expects the first shipments by the end of next week.

The order affecting nursing homes applies to more than 470 facilities and imposes the same testing requirements already faced by about 360 homes in Kansas licensed by the federal government. The rules require greater testing of employees if a county's rate of positive tests grows.

“Now that we have broader testing capacity in the state, it's really a commonsense measure,” Laura Howard, the top administrator at the state Department for Aging and Disability Services, said during a Statehouse news conference.

The federal government imposed its testing rules this summer, and Howard said the state is moving now because it can handle the additional testing. Kelly in late September announced plans for a “unified” strategy to boost total testing and Kansas hired 11 contractors last month to help.

The governor's executive order came a day after the State Board of Education recommended that elementary schools continue in-person classes even if the spread of the coronavirus in their communities is so great that schools otherwise would close.

During the seven-day period that ended Wednesday, Kansas had a daily average of 2,535 new confirmed or probable coronavirus cases, 52 new COVID-19 hospitalizations and 37 deaths from the disease, according to state Department of Health and Environment data.

Nursing homes have been hit hard. The health department said as of Wednesday, they accounted for 478 clusters of two or more cases since the pandemic reached the state in early March, or 33% of the state's total of 1,479.

Those nursing home clusters resulted in more than 8,500 confirmed or probable coronavirus cases as of Wednesday, or 4.7% of the state's pandemic total — but 873 deaths, or 45% of the state's total of 1,941.

The state's vaccine distribution plan calls for giving shots first to health care workers who are deemed at high-risk of contracting the disease, including nursing home workers, as well as their residents.

If the FDA authorizes Pfizer's vaccine, the state expects its first shipments to include the first of two doses for 23,750 people. Meanwhile, Kansas expects to receive the first doses of Moderna's two-dose vaccine for 49,000 people if the FDA approves it. It's likely to be months before vaccines are available to everyone.

Kansas added 5,778 coronavirus cases and 85 deaths to its pandemic tally since Monday. It also reported a net increase of 145 hospitalizations over those two days, bringing the total to 5,654.

The State Board of Education on Tuesday updated its pandemic guidance, which many local school districts are following closely, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported. Education Commissioner Randy Watson cited research showing younger students do not get as ill when infected.

“The chance for the virus impacting elementary schools, both from a teacher and student standpoint, is so low that the risk of not being in school is higher than being in school,” Watson said.

As of Wednesday, 3.3% of the state’s nearly 180,000 coronavirus cases and none of its more than 1,900 COVID-19 deaths during the pandemic were in children 9 years old or younger, according to the state health department.

But the department also reported that there have been 109 clusters of two or more cases in schools among students and staff, with nearly 1,300 cases, 15 hospitalizations and a staff death. The state's largest school district, Wichita's, reported last month that it had more than 600 cases between Aug. 1 and mid-November, with 61% of them among staff. It also reported that more than 200 staffers entered quarantine last week because of potential exposure to the virus.

The state board also voted Tuesday to allow local districts to subtract up to 20 hours of professional development for staff from required hours of classroom instruction.

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