7 more COVID-19 deaths reported Wednesday as Kansas City metro adds nearly 200 cases
The Kansas City metropolitan area added seven more COVID-19 deaths and nearly 200 more cases Wednesday.
The area encompassing Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas gained 189 cases for a total of 33,255 to date.
The seven day rolling average for new cases was 267. One week ago, it was 354. Two weeks ago, it was 361.
The two week positive test rate was 9.59% in Kansas City, 14.53% in Jackson County and 12% in Johnson County.
The one week positive test rate was 14.5% in Clay County.
The overall positive test rate was 9.47% in Platte County and 17.6% in Wyandotte County.
Five of the recent deaths were in Johnson County, one was in Wyandotte County and one was in Jackson County, raising the metro’s total to 464.
The University of Kansas Health System said 19 patients were hospitalized for the virus, up one from Tuesday.
The health system is a study site for the Astra Zeneca vaccine, which was paused Tuesday.
According to a statement from the company, the trial was put on hold because of “a single event of an unexplained illness.”
“You do studies and let’s say you’re testing a heart drug and all of a sudden the patient had a heart attack. It doesn’t mean the drug’s bad, it just means you got to stop and say ‘OK what happened to them?’ That’s why we do trials,” said Steve Stites, chief medical officer for the health system.
On Wednesday, Missouri reported 95,113 cases including 1,661 deaths. The seven day positive test rate was 13.5%. The overall positive rate was 8.8%.
Kansas confirmed 47,410 cases including 495 deaths. The overall positive test rate was 10.7%.
Across the country, more than 6.3 million people have contracted COVID-19 and 189,972 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
