Saturday, September 26, 2020

Kansas COVID-19, Week 11

 

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Last week we saw a dip in ICU capacity that was NOT due to more COVID-19 cases, but to other types of hospitalizations. This week the capacity is nearly unchanged, but the amount taken up by COVID-19 cases is up sharply. That's not only disturbing, but a good reminder to look at the data behind the data whenever possible.

The Good: The infection reproduction rate, or Rt, has dropped to 1.01, which is just barely above the level at which the raw number of infections should start trending downwards — if that number is accurate. Unfortunately, due to the lack of testing in Kansas, it's hard to tell how accurate it is. The site  I use to track Rt says its best estimate for Kansas is 1.01, it also says that the true number could be anywhere between 0.80 to 1.21. More testing would help narrow that range.

The Bad: As of Sept. 17, the state's hospitals had 36% of their ICU capacity free (with 130 hospitals reporting data). Of the 623 patients in ICU on that day, only 80 were in because of COVID-19. As of Sept. 24, the state again had 36% ICU capacity remaining (with 128 hospitals reporting). But — and here's where the bad part comes in — of the 632 total ICU patients on that day, 121 were in because of COVID-19. That's the largest number since the state started keeping track (the previous high was 112 on July 21). That doesn't bode well. Let's hope it's a blip and not a trend.

The Ugly: Test positivity in Kansas was 15.4% over the last two weeks. That's up a tad from last week (15.1%). This is way too high and it means we're probably missing a significant number of cases. It also means that if the Rt above is off, then the actual number is probably higher.

Bonus: The bonus section is back this week because I want to share another useful website. It's called the Daily Yonder and it's published by the Center for Rural Strategies. The cool part is a county-by-county map that controls for population to show which counties have more than 100 new  COVID-19 cases a week per 100,000 people — the White House Coronavirus Task Force's "red zone" threshold. It shows that in Kansas, as in most states, rural areas have not been entirely spared. Some rural areas, like a strip of counties along the northeast border with Nebraska and another strip along the south-central border with Oklahoma, have little COVID-19 per capita. But rural counties in the southwest corner, southeast corner and the center of the state around Hays are all in the red zone. Urban counties are a similarly mixed bag, with low levels of COVID-19 per capita around the Topeka and Wichita metro areas, but relatively high levels around the Kansas City metro. There's nothing magical about the 100 new cases per 100,000 threshold, but the map is a good way to visualize which parts of the site have more than their share of COVID-19, and are therefore disproportionately driving the statewide numbers. 

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