Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 15

 

The trends continue to go mostly in the wrong direction in Kansas, with the state setting another record Wednesday for 7-day average of new COVID-19 cases. And it's not just because we're testing more, because the percentage of tests coming back positive continues to rise as well. If you have rising case numbers and rising test positivity you can be fairly certain that you have rising infection rates. It shows in the number of deaths the state has recorded lately, as well.

The Good: It's a little hard to determine how COVID-19 specifically affected our hospital ICUs this week because the data is not coming in correctly from the feds. But the overall capacity looks to have held steady at about 35% most of the week. That's good, but I would very much like to know whether the number of ICU beds taken up by COVID-19 patients remains persistently high, like it was the week before. Hopefully HHS Protect gets that info published again soon.

The Bad: The infection reproduction rate (Rt) is up to 1.06. This was to be expected. The case growth we've seen in the past few weeks, coupled with the continuing rise in test positivity, could only mean that each infection was, on average, leading to more infections than before. In fact, if we were testing more, we would probably find that the Rt is more toward the upper end of the estimated range (1.29). At this point we know well what to do to get Rt down: keep your distance, don't gather in groups (especially indoors), and wear masks whenever you're out in public around other people. But if the large house party I observed across the street is any indication, some people still aren't getting the message.

The Ugly: Test positivity in Kansas is up to 19.9%, according to Johns Hopkins. That's eighth-worst in the country.

Bonus: One of the reasons our ICU capacity is holding steady is that a lot of COVID-19 patients are dying lately. As dark as it sounds, that frees up hospital beds. It took six months for Kansas to record its 500th COVID-19 death, on Sept. 11th. The state has recorded roughly another 500 in the six weeks since then. I know we're all tired of hearing the phrase "grim milestone," but at some point this week, Kansas will top 1,000 COVID-19 deaths, if it hasn't already (KDHE doesn't usually update the death numbers on weekends)(UPDATE: Kansas topped 1,000 deaths on Wednesday, Oct. 28, according to KDHE). According to the Federation of American Scientists, if Kansas were a country, it would have had the 12th-highest per capita COVID-19 death rate in the world during the week that ended Oct. 19 (Missouri would be in the top 10 and North Dakota would be the highest in the world).

My god, I cry so much for North Dakota and the Midwest right now. We are just at the beginning of the wave of deaths that are coming.

North Dakota has the highest mortality in the world. Higher than ANY country.

(Analysis by my FAS team. HT @euromaestro). #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/WirlY0o1AQ

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) October 23, 2020

It's easy to get lost in these numbers, but we should not forget that each of those deaths was a person with a family and friends who will miss them dearly. One of them was John Hickman, a para-educator at a middle school in Olathe. Paras in the Olathe school district make about $13-14 an hour and Hickman, according to KCTV5, specialized in assisting students with special needs. 

We can't prevent all of these deaths, but we can prevent some. Masks work. According to one study released this week, people in states with higher rates of mask use are less likely to know people with symptoms of COVID-19. According to another study, universal mask wearing could save more than 100,000 American lives between now and February. We need to try to get as close as possible to universal masking in Kansas, because at our current rate of deaths, we're going to lose another 1,000 people by February.