Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 31

We continued on a really good trajectory this week. New COVID cases in the Kansas City area have dropped to their lowest levels since July, and the rest of the state is also declining, though not as quickly in some areas. With any luck, the recent snap of ultra-cold weather will help by keeping people in their homes for another week or so. We don't know when the next COVID wave is coming, but this trough right now is our opportunity to get as many people vaccinated as possible to blunt that wave when it arrives.

The Good: The infection reproduction rate dropped from 0.98 to 0.87 this week. That's huge. This is why cases are dropping so fast. Each infection is now causing only 0.87 subsequent infections, on average. That means a solid portion of people who are getting infected now aren't infecting even a single other person. And that should only continue as the number of vaccinated Kansans increases. 

The Also-Good: Available ICU capacity increased from 29% to 34% this week, according to the Kansas Hospital Association. Every region of the state had at least 22% capacity available. That's a robust number, and should ensure that everybody who enters ICU now has the best chance possible to get out alive. It also means that our health care workers can finally take a breath and some can maybe even take a well-deserved vacation. 

The Bad: Test positivity is still going down in Kansas, but slowwwwwwwly. It dropped from 24.3% to 22.1% this week, according to Johns Hopkins. That's still third-worst in the country, behind only Iowa and Idaho. It's perplexing that this number isn't improving more quickly, given how good the other numbers look. High test positivity means we may be missing lots of infections. But the fact that it continues to go down — however slowly — even as new confirmed cases also go down, signals that we can be confident the steady downward trajectory of new infections is real.