Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 43

 

Kansas passed 5,000 COVID-19 deaths this week. The pace of deaths has slowed considerably over the past couple months and there's reason for optimism that we won't hit 6,000 unless the illness is allowed to fester for years to come. But vaccination resistance means it may well fester that long. We're getting into the realm of vaccine availability now where nearly every COVID death that occurs is entirely preventable. Yet the threat of COVID, while much reduced, has not been eliminated. As of May 7, only about one-third of Kansans were fully vaccinated. 

The Good: The infection reproduction rate, or Rt, dropped from 0.97 to 0.92. As I've said many times before, you have to be careful with this number, because its precision depends on testing, and in Kansas we've never tested enough to be super confident in the exact number. But the downward trajectory is encouraging, and it makes sense: as more Kansans are vaccinated, each COVID infection should result in fewer other infections. 

The Bad: It's getting harder and harder to get a good handle on hospital capacity statewide. The Kansas Hospital Association hasn't posted an updated data dashboard since April 23 and KDHE's hospital capacity tab seems to be on the fritz. So the best I can do is use a couple of regional dashboards from Wichita and KC for reference. Those are decent, if imperfect, indicators because the vast majority of ICU beds in the state are in those two regions. 

As of May 7, the Kansas City region was operating at about 26% of ICU beds available — a solid number. About 11% of the region's ICU beds were being used by COVID patients (compared to about 30% at the height of the fall surge). But there are still 60-some people fighting for their lives in KC hospitals because of COVID. 

As usual, things are a little dicier in Sedgwick County. As of May 3, the county's ICUs had only about 9% availability. About 14% of the county's ICU beds were being used by COVID patients and the 29 people in ICU because of COVID was the highest number there since Feb. 22. There is a very clear upward trajectory of both COVID-related hospitalizations and ICU admissions in Sedgwick County over the past six weeks or so. Hopefully it will level off soon.

The Ugly: Test positivity in Kansas barely moved once again, falling only from 13.8% to 13.3%, according to Johns Hopkins. Once again that's third worst in the country behind only Idaho and Iowa. California and Vermont are at 1.0%, according to Hopkins, and Kentucky is down to 0.8%. It can be done.