Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 54

Everything looks worse this week, both statewide and in the Kansas City area specifically. The outbreak that incubated in Springfield has now fully moved here. Cases are up, hospitalizations are up, and even deaths are beginning to tick up again. KU Hospital, the biggest in the state, is feeling the pinch of capacity issues already. Our vaccination rate in KC is about 10 percentage points higher than Springfield, so we should expect our surge to plateau more quickly and at a lower level. But things still seem perilous right now. A couple months back I thought the danger of overwhelmed hospitals was past. But the Delta variant and the extreme slowdown in vaccinations have changed that.

The Bad: The least bad thing this week is the infection reproduction rate, Rt, which only went up from 1.1 to 1.2. Still not good, but at least it's not rising faster. The current outbreak will not plateau until we get the Rt down to 1.0. The most effective way to lower it is through vaccinations. After that, it's wearing masks and staying away from other people as much as possible. 

The Worse: As I sit down to write this, the KDHE dashboard for COVID-19 data seems to be down. Fortunately, the Kansas Hospital Association has updated its dashboard this week, for the first time in over a month. Hopefully there will be more updates to come, because these are numbers Kansans need to know. Adult ICU capacity is down to 23% statewide this week. Can't compare that to last week's 35% number, because that came from KDHE (which I believe also includes pediatric ICU beds). But here's a number we can compare: Total COVID hospitalizations statewide rose from 270 to 366 this week. ICU capacity is most strained in the Kansas City area (17% availability) and Wichita area (19%). That's bad because that's where the vast majority of ICU beds in the state are. Kansas City hospitals haven't seen this many COVID patients since last fall's surge. Obviously, Delta moves through a community very fast. Other regions should take note. 

The Ugly: Test positivity, as calculated by Johns Hopkins, rose from 26.5% to 31%. There's probably a lot more viral transmission out there than we're finding through testing right now, which would explain why hospitalizations are rising so quickly.