Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 72

We are smack in the middle of the fall/winter surge now. Thanks to vaccines our case numbers are not as high as they were last year at this time, but they're now the second-highest they've ever been, surpassing even this summer's Delta-driven surge. Delta is still circulating, people are increasingly gathering indoors, and the air is colder and drier which allows respiratory viruses to spread more easily. It's a dangerous combo. If this year's fall/winter surge follows the same pattern as last year's, we may see a bit of a lull in new cases in the next week or two, as the Thanksgiving infections resolve, then another spike after Christmas/New Year's, followed by a steady drop off in January and February. But no real relief for hospitals until probably mid-to-late February. 

The Good: Test positivity fell from 52.6% to 47.3%, according to Johns Hopkins. To be clear, that is still quite high (even based on Hopkins' methodology, which skews higher than others). It's still second-highest in the country, in fact, behind only Iowa. But there's been a clear increase in testing in Kansas. We've more than doubled our per-capita testing rate and, though we're still nowhere near the states that are testing the most, we're now ahead of seven states that are testing less. So, progress. Knowing who's infected is the first step to slowing the spread. This all comes with the caveat that at-home tests are making it increasingly hard to calculate test positivity (because results from at-home tests aren't usually reported, especially if they're negative). 

The Bad: The infection reproduction rate, Rt, rose from 1.0 to 1.1. This is to be expected. Cases are clearly on the rise. In fact, there's a good chance the true Rt is even higher than 1.1; but the increase in testing allows us to have a little more confidence in this number going forward.

The Ugly: COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising, and fast. They're up statewide this week from 545 to 668, according to the Kansas Hospital Association. Remember how I said last week that we were likely to see a surge in ICU admissions? Well, they're up from 138 to 201. The increase seems to be mainly in eastern Kansas. Wichita's hospitalizations actually dropped from 172 to 159 (and cases in ICU dropped from 58 to 57). But the KC metro's COVID hospitalizations rose from 505 to 600 this week (that includes hospitals on both the Kansas and Missouri side of the state line. Only 186 of those are included in the Kansas Hospital Association's statewide total) and ICU cases went from 128 to 139. ICU availability in the KC metro has fallen to 13.24%. Anything below 20% is dangerous. Anything below 10% is critical and probably means some patients aren't getting the care they need. 

Bonus: The picture on Omicron is becoming increasingly clear. It's more transmissible than past variants, but not more severe (and may even be less severe). It has more immune evasiveness than previous variants, but two doses of Pfizer or Moderna plus a booster or a prior infection seem to still provide pretty robust protection. So get those boosters if you haven't already.