Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 61

 The news is good this week. We seem to be on a steady decline of new COVID cases, both statewide and in the KC area. The decline is not as fast as the Delta upswing was, but if we can sustain it, we should be in good shape in about a month. 

The Good: The infection reproduction rate, Rt, fell from 0.93 to 0.85 this week. Every infection is causing less than one new infection, which is how we choke the virus into submission. 

The Bad: Hospital ICU capacity, while not as dire as it was a couple weeks ago, remains stubbornly tight. Only 14% of ICU beds were available in the Kansas City area this week (16% on the Missouri side and 11% on the Kansas side). Wichita's ICUs are still overcapacity, and they're one COVID patient higher this week (up from 78 to 79). It's going to be several more weeks before Wichita is at a comfortable ICU level. Total COVID hospitalizations fell there for the first time in almost three months, but only from 206 to 196. Ninety percent of Sedgwick County's COVID hospitalizations are in unvaccinated patients. Logically, that means there would be about 175 fewer people in hospital beds if everybody had gotten their COVID shots. That would certainly help.

The Ugly: Test positivity only fell from 29.4% to 27.9% this week, according to Johns Hopkins. Right direction, but still way too high and not going down fast enough. It's fifth-worst in the country, behind Alabama, Idaho, Iowa and Florida. 

Bonus: Kansas' premier anti-vaccine group held its annual rally/fundraiser last week. Read more disturbing details here. 

Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 60

A couple weeks of declining new cases is finally taking a bit of pressure off eastern Kansas hospitals, and none too soon. Burned out respiratory therapists at the University of Kansas Hospital, overworked and tired of seeing so much death, quit en masse during the past couple weeks. That's the state's largest hospital, and traditionally one that would take critical care patients from smaller facilities throughout most of the state. But they haven't been able to accept transfers from other hospitals for over a week now, causing doctors in places like Abilene to fear their patients might die unnecessarily for lack of transfer options. If we can sustain recent reductions in new COVID hospitalizations and ICU admissions, maybe we can open enough critical care beds to avoid that. But there is a danger sign: the steady decline in new cases that we had been seeing in the Kansas City region since mid-August has reversed itself in the last couple days. This could represent a back-to-school spike. Let's hope it does not last.

The Good: The infection reproduction rate, Rt, fell from 1.0 to 0.93 statewide. That's consistent with the decrease in new cases and hopefully a number that continues to fall.

The Bad: Hospital ICU capacity statewide was at 21% availability as of Sept. 15, according to KDHE. That's not great, but better than we have been. Total COVID hospitalizations statewide (693) fell below 700 for the first time in a month, so that's good. But the state's biggest hospitals remain under some strain. Hospitals on the Kansas side of the KC metro were at about 12% ICU availability at the end of this week. That's obviously better than last week (when it was down to 1.2%), but still not where we want to be. Meanwhile, total COVID patients in Wichita's hospitals rose from 197 to 206 this week and COVID patients in ICU there rose from 73 to 78. That's a slower rate of increase than the week before, but any increase there right now is damaging. Both major hospitals are above their official ICU capacity and are operating on contingency, or "surge," plans. 

The Ugly: Test positivity fell from 31.5% to 29.4% this week, according to Johns Hopkins. It's good that it went down, but that's a pretty paltry decrease, especially when it's already so high. Kansas is fifth-worst in the country in this metric, behind Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

 

Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 59

Took last week off while camping for the holiday weekend. Here's the state of play: Our hospitals are jammed, they're about as overworked as they've ever been since the start of the pandemic. The good news is that new cases seem to have leveled off (and are even trending down in KC), but it will be at least another week or two before that translates into any relief for hospital workers. Right now, anyone who needs critical care in Kansas for any reason, COVID or not, is in danger of having that care compromised. 

The Good: The infection reproduction rate, Rt, is down to 1.0 statewide. Two weeks ago it was clocking in at 1.3, but I had doubts about the accuracy of that figure. Considering new cases have stabilized, 1.0 seems more indicative of where we really are.

The Bad: Test positivity was 31.5% this week, according to Johns Hopkins. That's actually down from 34.4% two weeks ago, but still way too high, and it makes it hard to know just how many new cases we're missing. Only Idaho and Iowa are higher. 

The Ugly: The Kansas Hospital Association is still graying out data on hospital ICU capacity statewide, but what's available from the state's two big medical hubs isn't encouraging. Wichita's hospitals are still over their normal capacity, and the number of COVID patients in ICUs there (73) is the highest it's been since Dec. 21 (and not far off the all-time record of 88). Kansas City's situation is also quite concerning. The metro's 27 hospitals were down to about 6.5% ICU capacity on Sept. 10, and the previous trend of things being worse on the Missouri side of the state line has now reversed as the outbreak moves steadily westward. ICUs on the Missouri side were just short of 11% capacity, while ICUs on the Kansas side were down to 1.2%. That's not a typo. There were a total of three ICU beds available on the entire Kansas side of the metro. Can't keep that up, obviously. 

Bonus: I don't know what could possibly be said at this point to convince vaccine-resistant folks to change their minds. You would think the fact that 90% of COVID patients in the hospital are unvaccinated would do it. But I know there are still some people who have real concerns about the safety of the vaccines and even believe they might be more risky than the actual disease, even though all data points the opposite direction (at least for everybody 16 and up). If you know somebody like that, perhaps this one story out of an Iowa prison will help:

Back in April, 77 inmates at the prison were shot up with six times the recommended dosage of the Pfizer vaccine due to a medical error (prison health care is notoriously bad in most states, but that's a whole other story). The nurses who made the error were fired, but the more interesting thing is what happened to those prisoners next: nothing. Some of them felt mildly ill, just like some people who get the recommended vaccine dose. Others felt fine. None had to be hospitalized. None had residual health problems. Think about that: 77 prisoners — a group that is significantly less healthy, statistically, than the U.S. population at large — got SIX TIMES the vaccine dose everyone else gets AND THEY WERE TOTALLY FINE! How in the world would that be possible if there were any real, systemic danger from the vaccine?  

Oh and, by the way, masks work. A huge, well-constructed study by a group of U.S. academics in Bangladesh confirms it. Surgical masks in particular, work well to reduce COVID transmission. Which makes sense, given that surgeons have been wearing them for decades to protect their patients from airborne pathogens.