Sixty-one new coronavirus cases and six more deaths reported in Kansas City area
Sixty-one additional cases of the new coronavirus and six deaths were reported Wednesday in the Kansas City metropolitan area, according to state data.
A total of 1,389 cases have been identified altogether in Kansas City, Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri as well as Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas, according to statistics kept by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
State and local data show that there was one new death in Jackson County, three in Johnson County and two in Wyandotte County.
Sixty-nine people have died from the disease in the Kansas City area.
On the Missouri side of the metro, 371 total cases and 11 COVID-19-related deaths have been reported in Kansas City. Outside the city limits, 243 cases and seven deaths have been in Jackson County; 52 cases and one death have been in Clay County, and 26 cases have been in Platte County, where zero deaths have been reported.
In Kansas, Johnson County has 334 cases and 19 deaths while Wyandotte County has seen 363 cases and 31 deaths. The deaths in Wyandotte County include at least 15 residents from Riverbend Post Acute Rehabilitation Center in Kansas City, Kansas, who tested positive for COVID-19 and died from the disease.
On Wednesday, Missouri reported 4,895 cases and at least 147 deaths statewide while Kansas said it has seen 1,494 cases and 76 deaths.
In a media briefing Wednesday, Steve Stites, chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System, said it appears the virus’s curve is starting to bend in the Kansas City area as residents last month were asked to stay at home and practice social distancing, “but the full success of that won’t be known really for months,” he added.
“Coronavirus is the challenge of our time,” Stites said. “It will define us as a generation right now, and we will not be the same on the other side of this as we were three months ago.”
“I’m really confident we will be able to deal with this, but it will take a little bit of time.”
Star reporter Katie Moore contributed to this report.
This story was originally published April 15, 2020 at 5:59 PM.
