Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 34

Again this week the metrics themselves are overall pretty good, but the trends are mixed. Some numbers are moving in the right direction, some are stagnant and some are going the wrong way. I still think it's possible we will see another spike in cases in the next couple months, but I remain optimistic that vaccines and acquired immunity from prior infections will blunt it (more on that below).

The Good: Test positivity continues to fall steadily in Kansas, from 17.6% last week to 13.7% this week, according to Johns Hopkins. After months of watching this metric stick stubbornly above 20% (or even 30%), the recent multi-week decline has been really good to see. Kansas is still fourth-highest in the country in this metric, but the three states that are worse (Idaho, Alabama, Iowa) are all significantly worse (18% or more). Kansas is finally headed in the right direction. 

The Bad: Hospital ICU capacity remained unchanged at 30% this week, according to the Kansas Hospital Association. The number itself is not bad — 30% capacity is plenty manageable if it stays there. But it's not a huge cushion in the event that we do face another surge. The south-central Kansas region remains the foremost potential trouble spot, at 14% capacity. 

The Ugly: The infection reproduction rate rose from 0.83 to 0.88. Again, 0.88 is not a bad number, but it's the trend that's ugly. This is now several straight weeks that this number has gone up. Here's the thing, though: based on the decreasing test positivity rate, it could be that previous estimates of Rt in Kansas were artificially low because we weren't testing enough to identify most cases. It's likely that we were never really as low as 0.82 and we're now getting closer to an accurate picture of how much infection we're truly spreading. As long as it stays below 1.0, and the test positivity rate keeps going down, we can feel good about where we're heading. 

Bonus: About 8.5% of Kansans are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the New York Times. About 17% of residents are partially vaccinated, which provides at least some protection against infection. This is not nearly enough to convey herd immunity (probably need at least 70%), but when you consider that in some parts of the state close to 50% of people have some measure of acquired immunity from getting COVID in the past year, we may be getting close in some regions. And the people not yet vaccinated right now skew younger, which means they're less likely to end up in the hospital if they do get COVID-19. All of this should hopefully prevent a repeat of November/December, when hospitals were full and desperately seeking transfers for dying patients.