Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 48

Overall things are looking pretty good in Kansas this week, although there are still some things to keep an eye on. New cases are up to 977 from 803 the week before, according to Kansas Hospital Association data. But the 803 week may have been an aberration because fewer tests were run (or analyzed) over the holiday weekend. Taking the longer view, 977 is still fewer new cases than we had any other week in the past year.

The Good: The infection reproduction rate, Rt, dropped from 0.99 to 0.97. Not a huge drop, but heading in the right direction. 

The Bad: Hospital ICU capacity statewide fell from 33% to 32%, but that's not really the bad part. The bad part is that the number of Kansans hospitalized with COVID rose from 107 to 114. No, that's not a huge jump. And our hospitals can definitely handle it. But any increase in COVID hospitalizations right now just seems tragically unnecessary. Not to mention something to keep an eye on. Hospitalizations are also on the rise in southwest Missouri. The CEO of CoxHealth, a hospital chain I mentioned last week, tweeted this week that his facilities are now treating 52 COVID patients — up from 16 just a few weeks ago.

The Ugly: Test positivity fell from 12.6% to 11.2% this week, according to Johns Hopkins. This bolsters my hypothesis that the reason we had fewer new cases the week before was a lack of testing. We tested more this week, and identified more new cases.  It's good that we're testing more, but 11.2% is still too high (it's the second-highest rate in the country, behind only Idaho).

Bonus: The foremost COVID hotspot in the United States of America is now a couple of small, adjoining counties in northern Missouri — Livingston and Linn. The virus doesn't respect county lines, so we can expect the outbreak there to seed more cases in the region. In fact, if you look at the New York Times' COVID map, it's clear that several other surrounding counties are now seeing elevated case numbers as well. None of those counties are likely to have many ICU beds, which means the sickest patients there will be sent elsewhere. Given their location, most of them will probably end up in Kansas City (or maybe Omaha). It's something else to keep an eye on. Vaccination has put a certain lid on the pandemic from here on out, but vaccination rates remain low in many counties (especially rural areas), so the lid there will be higher.