Kansas City metro adds 400 new COVID-19 cases, surpasses 700 total deaths
The Kansas City metro area added 14 COVID-19 deaths on Friday, surpassing 700 total deaths since the pandemic began.
The area encompassing Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri, and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas, gained 400 coronavirus cases Friday for a total of 48,460 to date.
The seven-day average for new cases was 364. One week ago, it was 433. Two weeks ago, it was 325.
Seven of the recent deaths were in Kansas City, one was in Clay County, five were in Johnson County and one was in Wyandotte County. The metro has reported a total of 712 deaths since the first death in the area was reported March 12 in Wyandotte County.
The University of Kansas Health System reported 36 patients hospitalized for the virus, up six from Thursday.
“It’s getting worse,” said Dana Hawkinson, director of infection prevention and control. “We were down in the low 30s and high 20s.”
Of the 36, 11 are in the intensive care unit and four require ventilators.
The health system has had 950 COVID-19 hospitalizations. Compared to March and April which saw 153 hospitalizations, 309 have been reported in September and October. Of the total hospitalizations, 10% of the patients had no pre-existing conditions. In October, 21% had no chronic health problems, said David Wild, vice president of performance improvement at the health system.
Eric Hargan, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, appeared Friday at a news conference hosted by the health system.
“While we’re moving closer and closer to distributing a safe and effective vaccine, we are by no means out of the woods yet,” Hargan said. “Epidemiological trends in large parts of the country remain concerning, including in the Kansas City area.”
Four vaccines are in the last stages of clinical trials. Work on research and development, manufacturing capacity and the distribution system is happening simultaneously.
“This is a national priority,” Hargan said. “We’re doing all these at the same time in order to shorten the time from the approval to getting it in arms for everyone in the country.”
On Friday, Missouri reported 164,534 cases to date, including 2,688 deaths. The positive test rate, excluding repeat tests, was 21.3%.
Kansas has confirmed 76,230 cases, including 975 deaths. There are currently 403 hospitalizations and 235 active clusters.
Across the country, more than 8.4 million people have contracted the virus and 223,381 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
