Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 70

Not a lot of good news this week. New cases still going up. Hospitalizations too. There was also a one-day spike in deaths on Nov. 19, though that's not enough to establish a trend. This seems to be the winter surge. Last year our new cases peaked right around this time, at a rate more than twice as high, leading to extreme death in December and January. I think it would be naive to believe the peak will come at precisely the same time this year. We may be there, we may not be. 

The Good: The infection reproduction rate, Rt, remained at 1.0 this week. We aren't testing near enough to be confident in that exact number (the website I use gives us a range of anywhere from 0.83 to 1.5), but if that's right, it's good news because it means infections aren't increasing. But they're not decreasing either.

The Bad: COVID hospitalizations statewide jumped from 443 to 478, according to the Kansas Hospital Association. Cases in ICU are up from 114 to 144. Wichita's hospitals saw a steep rise in cases this week, from 97 to 135. Cases in ICU there dropped from 51 to 50, but given the overall hospitalization numbers, it's only a matter of time before those are back on the rise. Kansas City area hospitals had 342 COVID patients this week, including 88 in ICU. ICU availability remained at 20% there, though. 

The Ugly: Test positivity rose from 37.6% to 42.4%, according to Johns Hopkins. That's second-worst in the country behind Iowa. Kansas is also basically tied with Idaho for lowest per-capita testing rate. Vermont is testing 20 times more than Kansas. 

Bonus: About 600 passengers on two planes traveling from South Africa to Amsterdam were stopped upon arrival and tested for COVID, because of the new Omicron variant. Sixty-one tested positive, though it's still unknown exactly how many had the Omicron variety. This will be something to keep an eye on.