Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 41

COVID-19 cases are rising again in Kansas. But they still seem to be rising relatively slowly, and we're starting from a pretty low level. Our hospital capacity is solid and we're now up to about 28% of residents fully vaccinated and 41% with at least one dose. Within a month we should have enough vaccinated people to slow any outbreaks and if there's a surge in hospitalizations between now and then, I think we will have the beds to handle it. It's increasingly looking like COVID no longer poses an acute threat to Kansas' health care system (although I reserve the right to change my mind if a vaccine-resistant variant emerges). Soon we will be able to gather again at work, at school and in stadiums without worrying about our hospitals being overrun a few weeks later. But vaccine hesitancy could still cause hundreds of unnecessary COVID deaths in the state every year for the foreseeable future (more on that below).

The Good: Hospital ICU capacity remained at 30% this week, according to the Kansas Hospital Association. In fact, the number of people hospitalized for COVID in the state actually fell from 263 to 261 — the first decrease in several weeks. If there is one region where ICU capacity is still a tad worrisome, though, it's (you guessed it) south-central Kansas, which was down to 17% this week. 

The Bad: The estimated infection reproduction rate, or Rt, stayed at 1.1. Of course it's good that it didn't go up, but as long as it remains above 1.0, the number of active infections in our state will continue to rise. 

The Ugly: Test positivity in Kansas was 11.3% this week, according to Johns Hopkins. That's actually a slight improvement over last week (11.7%), but it's frustrating that this number continues to be so high. Kansas had the fifth-worst positivity rate this week, behind Idaho, Iowa, Alabama and Michigan. In California and Vermont, the rate was 1.1%, according to Hopkins. They're doing a lot of testing. 

Bonus: This week, Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson seemed to poo-poo the importance of reaching herd immunity against COVID, saying of vaccines: "What do you care if your neighbor has one or not?" Well, here's a story from this week that illustrates why we should all care: An unvaccinated staff member brought COVID into a Wichita nursing home, where five residents were infected despite being vaccinated. This should not be surprising. Remember, even the most effective COVID vaccines on the market only work about 95% of the time. So if you have a nursing home with 100 fully vaccinated residents (which is not an unusually high amount), and someone brought COVID in, you would expect five residents to get infected. In fact, you would probably expect more than that, since nursing home residents are generally elderly and/or frail and therefore less likely to mount a robust immune response due to vaccination than the general public. 

Fortunately all the infected residents of the Wichita facility are asymptomatic, at least as of this week (that's another great reason to get vaccinated — studies show that even if you get infected, the shot makes you less likely to get sick). Nursing homes in other states have not been quite as fortunate, with some vaccinated residents dying. This is why herd immunity is important, and why we should all care about whether our neighbors and others we interact with regularly are vaccinated. Because otherwise they will continue to be vectors for disease. It's becoming increasingly clear as we collect data that the vaccines make you much less likely to transmit COVID to others. Vaccination is therefore a numbers game: the more people in a given area who are vaccinated, the harder it is for the virus to find a viable host. If we squeeze off enough pathways to viable hosts, the virus dies without being able to replicate. That's how we reach herd immunity, when even the people who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons are fully protected from the illness because the virus has been choked off completely — like we did with polio and measles (at least until recently). If we don't get there, we will continue to see COVID deaths forever, which would be a damn shame, considering how preventable they are now. 

When you get vaccinated you're not just helping yourself, you're helping everyone you come into contact with. When you decline vaccination, you're not just putting yourself at greater risk, you're putting everyone you come into contact with at greater risk. It's your right to choose whether you want to get the vaccine or not. But personal liberty with no sense of civic responsibility is just selfishness.