Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 26

We're still experiencing about 500 COVID-19 deaths every two weeks in Kansas. That rate, sadly, has not slowed, even as the rate of new cases has tailed off. The state topped 3,000 deaths this week (3,148 as of Jan. 8). A little more than 0.1% of all Kansans have now died of COVID-19. The fatality rate of influenza is about 0.1%. Which means that even if every single man, woman and child in the state got the flu in a given year, it still wouldn't kill as many Kansans as COVID has in just about nine months. All of which is to say, COVID is not the flu. Is it much deadlier (probably 5-10 times deadlier). And at this point anyone who tells you it's only about as deadly as the flu has no credibility.

The Not-so-bad: The infection reproduction rate, or Rt, rose only a tiny bit, from 1.03 to 1.04. Obviously it's not good that it rose, but everything else is bad this week, so this is as close as we get to good news. At least it didn't rise as fast as last week. She still have to be concerned about a holiday surge, though. Last week we saw a day of near-record new cases in the KC area, and this week the Topeka area set a new record.  

The Bad: Hospital ICU capacity is trending down again. It was 19% on Jan. 8, according to the Kansas Hospital Association. It was 21% the week before. The most strained part of the state continues to be south-central Kansas, at 11% availability. Wichita's ICUs remained over capacity, for the 10th straight week. 

The Ugly: Test positivity is super high and still rising. It's now 37.7%, according to Johns Hopkins. It was 35.9% last week. That's not a big increase, but once you're in the 30s it's honestly pretty hard to get higher. Unless you're Idaho. 

There's a lot to be concerned about in these numbers. But the vaccines continue to be delivered and soon everyone in nursing homes should have at least some protection. That should help with the death rate.