COVID testing way down in Kansas, Missouri. Health officials have a few explanations
In the first full week of January, more than 300,000 COVID-19 tests were run across Kansas and Missouri.
Last week, it was fewer than 133,000.
The number of people getting tested has plummeted in Kansas and Missouri over the past few weeks, part of a nationwide decline that comes as cases and hospitalizations are also falling.
But the drop in testing has received far less attention, even though health officials and governments spent much of the first year of the pandemic trying to make testing widely available and overcome shortages and backlogs that characterized the first months of the crisis.
November through January marked some of the darkest days of the pandemic, with cases and hospitalizations reaching all-time in highs in Kansas, Missouri and the nation as a whole. COVID-19 was spreading widely and people wanted and needed to be tested.
Health officials say to some degree it’s only natural that as the latest wave of disease subsides, demand for testing is also ebbing. Still, public health authorities are keeping a cautious eye on testing numbers.
They suspect winter weather, including last week’s extreme plunge in temperatures that led to rolling blackouts, has contributed to the decline. Others fear people are simply growing tired.
“I think it is fatigue,” said Lee Norman, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. “We’ve been trying to understand why.”
Norman, speaking during a media briefing Tuesday, suggested people just “want to magically have this whole scourge go away.” He also said the virus is not always top of mind anymore as hospitalizations have fallen.
Cities and counties with restrictions on bars, restaurants and gatherings have begun to roll them back. And while the virus remains a dangerous force, every major indicator of progress – cases, hospitalizations and deaths – is improving. Vaccinations are also progressing, with health experts hopeful doses will be widely available to the general public by late spring or summer.
More than 3,700 people were hospitalized with the virus in Kansas and Missouri in early January. Now, it’s closer to 1,500.
Kansas went from averaging more than 2,000 new cases a day in early January to fewer than 900 now. In Missouri, daily cases fell from more than 4,000 on some January days to fewer than 500.
“The reality is, when our hospital census has dropped from 100-plus in November, early December down to 33 today for the acute infections, that just means there’s less COVID in the community,” Steve Stites, chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System, said Tuesday.
COVID trends improving
Nationally, public health experts in the Biden administration continue to see trends heading in the right direction. But they remain concerned that cases, hospital admissions, and deaths remain relatively high, even if they are substantially down from the heights reached following the winter holiday season. And they continue to monitor the new variants of the virus that can spread more easily.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted Monday that testing sites closed across the country last week as winter storms pummeled the South, Midwest and Northeast.
A White House official said the administration always believed that testing rates were bound to decrease from their January peak, but said COVID-19 testing remains too difficult for Americans to access, highlighting the president’s request for funding in the American Rescue Plan. The proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package includes $50 billion for testing aimed at cutting down wait times, reaching underserved communities and helping schools reopen.
Kansas and Missouri have both already funneled millions, much of it federal dollars, into testing. After severely restricting who could be tested in first months of the pandemic, testing has become much more widely available.
Expansive state-subsidized testing may not last forever, however. Norman, nodding at the current role of federal money, said Kansas will eventually reach a “decision point” when officials will have to decide how much of the cost the state can absorb.
“I’ll be working with my colleagues to figure out at what point does it not make sense to have it quite so broadly available,” Norman said.
Even though testing is now declining, the percentage of tests coming back positive has also fallen, according to data from KDHE and the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, or DHSS.
Health leaders pay attention to the rate because a high figure suggests not enough testing is happening to understand how prevalent the virus is. In recent days, both states have reported relatively low positivity rates of about 6 percent.
However, Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, which independently calculates positivity rates, shows Kansas having a 7-day rolling average of about 22 percent. According to the school’s rankings, Kansas has the second-highest rate in the nation, after South Dakota.
No national standard exists for calculating the rate. KDHE spokeswoman Kristi Zears said Johns Hopkins uses a different equation and that it appears the school relies on summary information rather than more detailed data posted by the agency. Johns Hopkins’ website says it may diverge from state-calculated rates and that the lack of federal standards makes a true “apples to apples” view impossible.
Under-testing unlikely
Falling hospitalizations combined with falling positivity rates mean under-testing isn’t likely, said DHSS spokeswoman Lisa Cox. She added that sewage testing isn’t showing increased viral material across communities. In some instances, wastewater testing has been able to detect upticks in COVID-19 before regular testing does.
“The weather experienced the past two weeks also likely impacted testing volume, so it is likely that levels may somewhat rebound now that dangerous weather has passed,” Cox said.
Johnson County Public Health Director Sanmi Areola agrees that severe weather has likely contributed to a decline in both the demand and availability of testing. It also kept individuals indoors with their respective households, possibly holding down cases.
“Additionally, the decrease in cases may be related to the public’s perception of the severity of the pandemic,” he said.
Areola explained that the sharp increase in cases following the holiday season may had spurred some people who hadn’t previously followed health guidance to change their behavior.
On Feb. 21, county data showed that 19,084 individuals were tested in the previous 14 days. That’s down from the 32,127 tests performed in a two-week period, reported one month earlier on Jan. 21 -- a 41% decrease.
Since mid-November, Johnson County has tested more than 30,000 individuals every two weeks. But that number has steadily declined this month, which has caused health officials to be cautious about highlighting the recent drop in new cases.
But with new COVID-19 related hospitalizations and deaths now also in decline, Areola said he is confident saying the region is seeing a true decline in transmission of the virus.
“However, it is important for our community to continue to be vigilant with their own health as well as others,” he said, “and continue to engage with public health recommendations such as masking and social distancing and getting vaccinated when it is their turn.”
McClatchyDC’s Michael Wilner contributed reporting
This story was originally published February 24, 2021 at 1:26 PM.
