More than 100 new COVID-19 cases reported in KC metro for second day in a row
New cases of the coronavirus rose Thursday by more than 100 for the second consecutive day in the Kansas City metropolitan area.
The area encompassing Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas added 113 new cases on Thursday.
The area has a total of 5,349 cases.
The number of new cases increased by 73 on Monday, 73 on Tuesday and 115 on Wednesday.
The overall percent positivity rate was 4.34% in Kansas City, 3.7% in Jackson County, 2.5% in Clay County, 3.8% in Johnson County and 15.7% in Wyandotte County. Platte County does not provide this figure.
No new deaths were reported Thursday. A total of 203 deaths have been recorded in the metro, with the first being reported March 12 in Wyandotte County.
Physicians at the University of Kansas Health System said they have noticed an uptick in patients at the hospital being treated for COVID-19.
“For the past week, we have certainly seen an increase in patients which is really concerning,” said Dana Hawkinson, director of infection prevention and control at the health system.
“We were down to 10, nine or 10 patients. Over the last couple of days, it has gone up. We currently have 18 patients in-house. Eight of those are requiring critical care services, so ICU, and three of those patients are on the vents (ventilators).”
On Thursday, Missouri reported 15,390 cases including 860 deaths.
Kansas has at least 10,812 cases including 240 deaths.
Nationwide, more than 2 million people have contracted the virus and more than 113,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
This story was originally published June 11, 2020 at 3:27 PM.
