Gov. Kelly to leaders spreading virus misinformation: ‘Your actions hurt your neighbors’
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly begged residents to get vaccinated against COVID-19 on Friday and condemned politicians who spread misinformation as she described a state health care system pushed to the brink.
The Democratic governor, in her most aggressive remarks on the virus in recent memory, joined physicians at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Overland Park to emphasize that Kansas now stands at an inflection point. More cases risk overwhelming hospitals but vaccinations, mask wearing and other precautions can again bring the spread under control.
“The campaign of misinformation is not limited to Facebook. There are people in positions of leadership, who hold influence, who have used COVID and politics to divide us,” Kelly said. “I want those who are weaponizing this misinformation to know your actions don’t hurt me.”
“Your actions hurt your neighbors with pre-existing conditions … your actions hurt your local businesses … your actions are hurting our teachers, who have to risk their safety every day because their students are not wearing masks.”
Kelly was asked to respond to remarks made by Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican who has spoken against mask mandates. The question didn’t specify what comments Marshall had made, but Kelly responded by saying “that’s a problem when you have high-profile public figures spreading misinformation. It’s a problem. We’re here to provide the facts.”
Marshall, a physician, said in a recent interview with Newsmax that “no one has convinced me that masks really work,” especially for vaccinated people or those who have already had COVID-19. Public health and hospital leaders, including in Kansas, have repeatedly stressed the importance and effectiveness of mask wearing.
Marshall’s office didn’t immediately comment and Kelly’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for clarification about what the governor was referring to.
Kelly’s comments, during a news conference, came as hospitals in the Kansas City area are pushed to their limit. The number of COVID-19 patients across the metro is approaching levels last seen during the winter and is still trending upward.
“Over the past several weeks, COVID-19 cases and related hospitalizations of Kansans of all ages have risen exponentially,” Kelly said. “It shouldn’t be like this, but COVID-19 infections are more rampant today than they were before the vaccine was available.”
The daily average of new hospitalizations was 165 on Wednesday. During the depths of the winter surge, the average reached 189, according to data from the Mid-America Regional Council.
“I do not know a hospital or a system in our entire region that is not in or near crisis related to staff, available beds, or both,” said Andrew Schlacter, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at Saint Luke’s.
The hospitalizations follow weeks of rising cases. While there are some signs cases may have begun to level off, severe illness lags infection, meaning hospitalizations may continue to increase for at least another couple weeks.
The metro area has filled all but 17% of its adult intensive care beds, with COVID-19 patients taking up 35% of ICU beds.
Across Kansas, hospitals collectively have about a quarter of staffed adult ICU beds still open, meaning the facilities have enough employees to properly care for patients in those beds.
Staffing difficulties have afflicted some hospitals, reducing capacity.
But the demand for ICU beds isn’t evenly distributed, according to data from the Kansas Hospital Association. In northeast Kansas, only 15% of ICU beds remain unfilled. In south central Kansas, 16% are open.
Kelly said her administration is discussing what it may do to combat the ICU shortage, but made no announcements on Friday.
“There are ways to modify within hospitals, other areas, to create more beds. Part of the problem we have, though, and this is what we’re trying to figure out, it’s not so much that there aren’t enough beds. It’s that there aren’t enough staff to staff those beds,” Kelly said.
The challenges confronting Kansas resemble what officials faced in the early days of the pandemic, the governor said. At that time, states competed with each other for limited supplies, such as masks. Today, the competition for contract nurses is fierce, with some facilities in some states able to offer much more than in Kansas.
“So we’re going to end up in a bidding war with other states,” Kelly said.
In Missouri, Gov. Mike Parson deployed ambulance “strike teams” to aid efforts to transport patients around the region to open beds.
Missouri is now matching, and in some instances exceeding, previous peaks for average daily COVID-19 ICU hospitalizations. On Wednesday, the rolling average number of virus ICU patients was about 682. During the winter surge, the average previously hit about 661, according to data from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
Hospitalizations are surging across much of the Great Plains, stressing facilities in the region and spurring increasingly frantic searches for open beds.
The University of Kansas Health System, located in a large metro area, would typically accept patients from smaller facilities needing more specialized care. But the health system is being flooded with a record level of transfer requests and having to decline most of them.
The hospital system is on pace to receive more than 2,000 requests in August — the most ever — and decline about 70%, said Tim Williamson, vice president of quality and safety.
“The past few weeks it’s been like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Williamson said during a media briefing Friday.
Kansas and Missouri have a long way to go in vaccinating residents. Kansas has fully vaccinated 55.6% of residents 12 or older — the population eligible to get a shot. Missouri has fully vaccinated 50.7%.
The states are behind the United States as a whole, which has fully vaccinated 59.8% of those 12 and up.
Kansas and Missouri both experienced an increase in first doses during July and August, amid fear of the delta surge and the announcement of a statewide incentive program in Missouri. The numbers are trending down again, however.
This story was originally published August 20, 2021 at 2:38 PM.
