Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 74

 

Skipped the blog last week to spend time with family over Xmas. Consequently, all of the numerical comparisons this week will be to numbers from two weeks ago. It wasn't pretty then, and it's worse now.

The Good: The infection reproduction rate, Rt, fell from 1.1 to 1.0 this week. That's good if it's accurate because it means our new cases have plateaued. But right now they're at too high a level for our health career system anyway, so a plateau is not good enough. We need a reduction in new cases, which will only happen if this number falls below 1.0. And even then, there's going to be some lag before hospitals feel relief. 

The Bad: Test positivity in Kansas rose from 48.3% to 62.0% this week, according to Johns Hopkins. Sounds crazy high, but seven other states (Rhode Island, DC, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Indiana and Missouri) are even higher now. It's bad all around. But without more testing we can't be fully confident in our Rt number.

The Ugly: Here's the hospital situation:

• Statewide COVID hospitalizations are up from 758 to 827 this week, according to the Kansas Hospital Association.
• Statewide cases in ICU rose from 199 to 232.
• COVID hospitalizations in the Wichita area rose from 169 to 181 and cases in ICU there rose from 59 to 66.
• COVID hospitalizations in the KC area (bistate) rose from 727 to 840 and cases in ICU there rose from 150 to 196. 
• Overall ICU availability in the KC area fell from 12.75% to 10.02%. This is critical.

Bonus: The combination of rising COVID hospitalizations and staff shortages due to infection are pushing hospitals across the state to the brink. Topeka's largest hospital had to stop accepting patient transfers just before Christmas. Wichita's hospitals are treating people in ER waiting rooms, where some of them have been stuck for days, waiting for a bed. Things are no better across the state line, where Missouri hospitals are enduring some of the nation's worst staffing shortages. All of which means that the big hospitals that normally take in critically ill patients from rural facilities are often no longer able to, and Kansans who need a higher level of care are increasingly stuck in those smaller, lesser-equipped hospitals. And these aren't just COVID patients, either. Everyone who needs an ICU bed in the state for any reason is potentially in a bind now. Much of it is preventable, too. Wesley Medical Center, one of the state's largest, reports that about 95% of its COVID patients are not fully vaccinated. As of Friday, KU Hospital (which is the state's largest) reported that only 5 of its 104 COVID patients were fully vaccinated (odds are those five have some sort of condition that impairs their immune system, like an organ transplant or cancer treatments). Kansas is showing that during Delta/Omicron surge, if you have about half your population vaccinated, your health care system can still be crushed by the other half that's not vaccinated.