KC metro adds fewest COVID-19 cases since October as new variant discovered in MO
Several hours after local health experts announced the first confirmed case of a new variant of COVID-19 in Missouri, the Kansas City metropolitan area on Sunday added 218 new coronavirus cases, the fewest since October.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services on Saturday evening reported finding the B.1.1.7 COVID-19 variant in an adult in Marion County, Missouri. The new variant was first discovered in the U.K. in September 2020 and then in the United States in December. Kansas reported its first case of the U.K. variant on Wednesday in Ellis County.
The new variant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is more easily transmissible, making it more contagious.
Sunday’s 218 additional cases were the fewest reported since Oct. 15, 2020, when 176 cases were reported.
On Sunday, the Kansas City metro also reported one more coronavirus death, bringing the total number of fatalities across the metro to 1,784 since the pandemic began.
To date, at least 134,783 people have been infected with the novel coronavirus in the metro, which encompasses Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas.
As of Sunday, the seven-day rolling average for new cases in the Kansas City metro sat at 318. One week ago, it was 481. Two weeks ago, it was 583.
Johnson County, where Sunday’s death was reported, tallies the greatest number of infections in the metro, at 41,863. The county has also suffered the most deaths, with 594.
Kansas City has reported 458 COVID-19 deaths and 36,037 cases to date. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services’s COVID-19 data for Jackson, Clay and Platte counties does not include the cases discovered within Kansas City’s city limits.
On Sunday, Missouri reported 466,217 cases to date, including 7,143 deaths. The seven-day positive test rate was 8.4%.
Missouri has distributed 961,525 doses of the vaccine and administered 625,152 doses, according to the most recent data published Sunday morning by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of Friday, the most recent day in which numbers were reported, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported 281,562 cases, including 4,101 deaths. The monthly positive test rate was 5.7%.
Kansas has distributed 492,250 doses of the vaccine and administered 296,284, according to the CDC.
Across the country, nearly 27 million people have contracted the virus and nearly 463,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. Globally, nearly 106 million people have tested positive for the virus and more than 2.3 million have died.
