Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 25

 

Last week all of the metrics were looking pretty decent. But this week we're already seeing evidence of the holiday surge that public health officials predicted. For example, the Kansas City area recorded a near-record number of new cases Friday. That's about one incubation period after Christmas, so this is to be expected. Hopefully it will be temporary.

The Good: Hospital ICU capacity remained at 21% as of Jan. 1, according to the Kansas Hospital Association. One would hope we could gain a little capacity to give us more cushion heading into the holiday surge, but an unchanged rate is what qualifies as good news this week. Wichita's ICUs have now been over capacity for two full months, but they have their lowest number of COVID-19 patients since Nov. 2.

The Bad: The infection reproduction rate, or Rt, rose from 0.95 to 1.03. Not good. Anything above 1.0 means more cases, more hospitalizations and more deaths. This week's rise might reflect the holiday surge, but it didn't have to happen. Three other midwestern states, Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota (which all now have statewide mask mandates and other restrictions), are still below 1.0.

The Ugly: Test positivity rose to 35.9%, according to Johns Hopkins. We'd been making some modest gains in that area over the last few weeks, getting the rate below 30% (still way too high). Now that's all gone. We've never tested enough in this state, since the beginning of the pandemic. And we still aren't. Not even close.