KDHE Secretary Dr. Lee Norman said Friday he believes the state is on the downward slide in hospitalizations and deaths.

“I think we have reached our peak in hospitalizations and in deaths," said Norman.

He made that announcement at the governor's daily news conference.

“Governor Kelly and I have spent a number of hours with various hospital and clinical leaders," said Norman, "We've seen a nice drop in the number of hospitalized, critical care and ventilated patients.”

With that positive trend, Gov. Kelly said the narrative could soon shift.

“If that is accurate then we are headed to the downward slope of this journey, and we should be able to proceed with our transition from response to recovery next week as planned," she said.

That includes population testing.

Norman said, “We want to know how much disease is out there, meaning how many people and what percentage of people have become infected and are not symptomatic.”

He warns this will cause an increase in the number of positive cases.

Norman said, “More testing and higher numbers should not be perceived as a negative thing, but it will help us to have one more tool in our tool kit for getting great control of this COVID-19.”