Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 71

Well, we're about a week out from Thanksgiving and we seem to be experiencing a significant spike in new cases as a state. It's having a worrisome effect on our hospital capacity. I know everyone is tired of hearing they should get vaccinated, mask up and social distance, but if we don't start doing more of all three, it could be a rough holiday season. Our COVID numbers are not as bad as last year's deadly winter surge, but this year we have more flu (probably because people have taken off their masks) and other illnesses to deal with at the same time. 

The Good: The infection reproduction rate, Rt, is still estimated at 1.0 (with a potential range of 0.86 to 1.3, which is a huge variance because of our lack of testing). But even that bit of good news is probably short-lived. Given the rate of new cases in the past few days I think once the data reporting catches up, that Rt number is almost certainly going to rise.

The Bad: Hospitals are increasingly crunched. COVID hospitalizations statewide are up from 478 last week to 545 this week, according to the Kansas Hospital Association.  That's only about half of the last year's peak hospitalizations (thank you, vaccines) but still a lot to deal with. Oddly, ICU cases are down, but only from 144 to 138. Given the increase in hospitalizations, I would expect that to change over the next week. Sedgwick County's ICUs are overloaded. COVID hospitalizations there jumped from 135 to 172, and cases in ICU went from 50 to 58. Kansas City area hospitalizations rose from 342 to 505 and cases in ICU went from 88 to 128. ICU availability in the metro area is down to 15%.

The Ugly: Test positivity rose from 42.4% to 52.6%, according to Johns Hopkins.  That's second-worst in the country, ahead of only Iowa. Only Iowa and Idaho are running fewer tests per capita. Vermont, the nation's leader in testing, is now running 22 times more per capita tests than Kansas.