Over past week, Kansas City metro adds more than 500 new COVID-19 cases and 22 deaths
The Kansas City metropolitan area added nearly 90 new COVID-19 cases and five deaths on Tuesday.
The area encompassing Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas gained 88 new cases for a total of 149,258 to date. Over the past week, the area added 509 new cases.
The seven-day rolling average for new cases rose on Tuesday to 73, according to data tracked by The Star. One week ago, the average was 56 and two weeks ago, it sat at 91.
In the past week, the metro added 22 deaths. The area has recorded a total of 2,242 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began.
Five patients were being treated for the virus at The University of Kansas Health System, up from four on Monday. One patient was in the intensive care unit.
Officials said the hospital has not had a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator since May 24.
Dr. Lee Norman, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, appeared on the health system’s daily briefing and said trends were improving. But there were still about 100 new cases and one to three deaths every day in Kansas.
“The fact is the numbers have come down quite dramatically, but we still have a ways to go,” Norman said.
Johnson County leads the metro on vaccinations, with 48.1% of its population fully vaccinated. That’s followed by Platte County at 35.6%, Jackson County at 34.4%, Clay County at 33.3% and Wyandotte County at 30.7%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Tuesday, Missouri identified 513,858 total cases including 9,189 deaths. The seven-day positive test rate was 4.7%.
The state has administered 4,633,414 vaccine doses, with 42.4% of the population initiating vaccination. Missouri has received 5,979,175 vaccine doses, the CDC said.
Kansas reported 315,099 total cases including 5,100 deaths. The monthly positive test rate was 2.4%.
The state has distributed 2,823,490 vaccine doses. Of those, 2,226,525 have been administered, with 42.8% of the population initiating vaccination.
Across the country, more than 33.3 million people have contracted COVID-19 and 598,059 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
