5 deaths reported as Kansas City metro adds more than 250 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday
The Kansas City metropolitan area added more than 250 new COVID-19 cases and five more deaths on Tuesday.
The area encompassing Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas gained 255 new cases for a total of 30,996 to date.
The seven day rolling average for new cases was 366. One week ago, it was 336. Two weeks ago, it was 397.
The University of Kansas Health System reported 27 patients hospitalized for the virus, down nine from Monday.
Steve Stites, chief medical officer at the health system, said information circulating about the new coronavirus’ death rate was inaccurate.
Of the deaths involving the virus, COVID-19 was listed as the only cause in 6% of the cases, according to a report from the CDC. The vast majority of people who have died from the virus also had other medical conditions.
“Don’t delude yourself and make yourself say ‘See nobody really dies of COVID,’” Stites said. “All those deaths who died of COVID, died of COVID. And the fact is that what happens is as with any infectious disease or really a car accident or a severe burn injury or if you’ve got heart disease, if you’ve got an underlying disease, it’s going to make things more serious. It is certainly true that most of the people who have died of COVID have underlying disease, that’s a true statement. But they still died of COVID and they wouldn’t have died had they not gotten COVID.”
Two deaths were reported in Kansas City while Jackson, Johnson and Wyandotte counties recorded one. The metro has had a total of 405 deaths due to COVID-19.
On Friday, Missouri reported 85,755 cases including 1,538 deaths. The seven day positive test rate was 12.5%. The overall test rate was 8.6%.
Kansas has confirmed 42,612 cases, including 446 deaths. The overall positive test rate was 10.3%.
Across the U.S., more than 6 million people have contracted the virus and 184,114 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
