Kansas exceeds 550 coronavirus cases found so far, with 13 deaths and low test rates
Two more people have died of COVID-19 in Kansas, bringing the state’s total number of deaths reported from the disease to 13, according to statistics released Thursday afternoon by Kansas health officials.
One of the deaths came in Wyandotte County, where a woman in her 60s died from COVID-19 Wednesday. She had been diagnosed Monday, according to Janell Friesen, a spokesperson for the Unified Government Public Health Department.
The number of cases identified across the state continued to grow, reaching 552 identified as of Thursday. That was up from 368 at the beginning of the week.
Of those, 138 people have been hospitalized, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Johnson County has been hit the hardest, with 161 reported cases, according to state health officials. Wyandotte County reported 106 cases. Sedgwick County has the third most cases with 79. The state reports 6,059 negative tests.
New testing data shows people are tested for the virus at a lower rate in more populous Kansas counties.
Johnson County, with a population of about 600,000, has a testing rate of 2.61 for every 1,000 people. Next door, Wyandotte County has a population of about 165,000, with a testing rate of 4.14 for every 1,000 people.
Sedgwick County has a testing rate of 1.26 for every 1,000 people, with a population of more than 516,000 and 79 cases identified so far.
Coffey County has the highest testing rate, with 5.99 for every 1,000 people in a population of just over 8,000. Sixteen people in the country have tested positive for the virus.
Missouri has tested about three times as many people than Kansas and has found about three times as many cases. People in both states test positive for the virus at a rate close to 8%. Missouri’s rate rose to about 9% Thursday.
In Kansas, about 29% of people diagnosed are between the ages of 20 to 44. The second most cases fall in the age group between 55 to 64 with 21.2%. The median age of cases is 55 years old.
Officials have reported five COVID-19-related deaths in Wyandotte County and four in Johnson County, two in Shawnee County and one each in Coffey and Crawford counties in Kansas.
The number of cases approaches one million worldwide, according to the latest numbers from Johns Hopkins University.
The U.S. has reported 226,374 cases, nearly double the number of cases of Italy, which has the second most cases at 115,242. More than 50,000 people have died across the globe, with 5,316 of those in the U.S.
This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 1:22 PM.
