Kansas City metro adds 149 new COVID-19 cases, three more deaths on Monday
The Kansas City metropolitan area added 149 new COVID-19 cases and reported three more deaths on Monday.
The area encompassing Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas has a total of 7,934 cases.
The seven-day average for new cases is 194. One week ago, it was 119. On June 1, it was 69.
The positive test rate Monday was 5.63% in Kansas City, 5.14% in Jackson County, 3.5% in Clay County, 4.3% in Johnson County and 15.5% in Wyandotte County.
On Monday, a mandate requiring people in Kansas City to wear masks in public went into effect. A similar rule goes into effect Tuesday in Wyandotte County and Wednesday in Jackson County.
Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at the University of Kansas Health System, said the mask mandate will be helpful in preventing the spread of the virus.
“The mask wearing is going to be for a short amount of time — if you are going into a store or running an errand, things of that nature, it’s not going to be that long,” Hawkinson said during a daily briefing hosted by the health system. ”You will have plenty of gas exchange so you’re going to be able to get oxygen and carbon dioxide will be able to filter out. Remember, we have surgeons who do eight, 10, 12 hour surgeries with N95 or stronger masks on. So they breathe just fine, they can do that, we can do this when we’re going out to our errands.”
Two of the recent deaths were in Wyandotte County and one was in Clay County. The metro has recorded 240 COVID-19 deaths.
Missouri reported 21,043 cases, including 599 people hospitalized Monday. Of the 998 people who have died, 514 have been age 80 or older, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
Kansas confirmed 14,443 cases, including a total of 1,152 hospitalizations. Of the 270 deaths, 159 have been age 75 or older, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said.
Nationwide, more than 2.5 million people have contracted the virus and more than 125,000 have died. Globally, there have been more than 10 million cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.
