Kansas COVID-19 Update, Week 80

 

Another good week. New cases continue to fall rapidly and test positivity is also declining, which means we can be quite certain the dip in cases is real. Hospitalizations are also trending down for the second straight week, though they're still at kind of unmanageable levels. We are on the back end of the omicron surge, but hospitalizations and deaths will likely remain stubbornly high for another couple weeks as the effects of the surge dissipate.

The Good: The infection reproduction rate, Rt, plummeted from 1.0 to 0.64 in Kansas this week. I have trouble believing that such a drastic change really happened in one week, so I think last week's number was probably overinflated and the website I use to find Rt is finally catching up with the declining case counts. In any case, this is really good news.

The Not-Bad: Test positivity fell again, from 29.8% to 22.1%, according to Johns Hopkins. That's still sixth-highest in the nation, but we're definitely trending in the right direction.

The Still-Bad-But-Getting-Better: Hospitalizations are headed down for sure, but they're still quite high and hospital capacity is still quite tight. It may be that people who had their non-COVID medical care delayed during the surge are now getting in for their procedures. That's good, but it's going to take weeks or even months for us to catch up.   

• Statewide COVID hospitalizations fell from 1,091 to 889 this week, according to the Kansas Hospital Association.
• Statewide cases in ICU fell from 236 to 203. 
• COVID hospitalizations in the Wichita area fell from 272 to 218, and cases in ICU fell from 67 to 54. Both Wichita hospitals are still managing through contingency plans, but hopefully should be able to resume normal operations soon. 
• COVID hospitalizations in the KC area (bistate) fell from 1,116 to 922 and cases in ICU fell from 211 to 179. 
• Overall ICU availability in the KC area rose from about 14.3% to 14.7%. But regular hospital bed availability actually dropped a bit, from 16% capacity available to about 15%. It seems like a lot of people are ready to move past the pandemic, but if you work in a hospital it's not really possible to do so. It's still dominating every work day.