Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 20

 

The "grim milestones" are coming faster now. It took six months (from March 11 to Sept 11) for Kansas to reach 500 COVID-19 deaths. It took about six weeks (from Sept. 12 to Oct. 28) to record another 500. Then four weeks (from Oct. 29 to Nov. 23) to record yet another 500. Given the current ICU numbers, the state's death rate is not likely to slow in the near future. It's more likely to accelerate. Which means we'll probably hit 2,000 COVID deaths by Christmas.

The Good: The infection reproduction rate, or Rt, fell from 1.06 to 1.05. We could really use a bigger drop than that, given where we're at with hospitalizations. But we moved closer to the magic number of 1.0, so that's good. We're already seeing new cases taper off in parts of the state that put new infection control measures in place, like the Wichita area and Kansas City area. 

The Bad: ICU capacity improved a bit, going from 16% availability to 21%, according to the Kansas Hospital Association. But there are still very worrisome trends underneath those numbers. ICU capacity remains totally tapped out in southwest Kansas, and nearly tapped out in south central Kansas, which is no surprise given that Wichita's big ICUs have been over capacity for a full month now. And the state has 292 COVID-19 patients in ICU, which is yet another record. Which means the new capacity is from adding ICU beds and having fewer non-COVID patients. We can't count on that going forward. 

The Ugly: Test positivity went up, from 35.1% to 38.1%, according to Johns Hopkins. Not as high as it was two weeks ago, but still way too high and now trending the wrong direction. This means we're missing more infections than we were the week before — and we've been missing far too many infections for months now. 

Bonus: Gov. Kelly's decision to issue a second mask mandate appears to have paid off. This time, most counties didn't vote to opt out. More than half of the counties in Kansas (about 70 out of 105) now require masks. This was a pleasant surprise for me. I expected more of the local officials in rural areas to buck the governor's order, given the politics of the situation. But this gives me hope that masks aren't as politicized as I thought (although it should be noted that county commissioners voted to opt out again in some of the areas of SW Kansas hardest hit by COVID-19, like Ford County and Seward County, which is mind-boggling). 

The new mask rules also give me hope that we might see new daily cases start to decline statewide in about 10 days (after the incubation period), which would then results in fewer hospitalizations in about two weeks. The big wild card in all this, though, is Thanksgiving. If too many people decided to ignore public health recommendations and gather together in person, then we will likely see a spike in the next two weeks, rather than a decline, even with the new mask order. Either way, the death rate is likely to march on dispiritingly in the short term. Many of those 292 Kansans currently in ICU with COVID are not going to make it.