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.