University of Kansas Health System reports record breaking number of COVID-19 patients
The University of Kansas Health Systems on Monday reported its highest number of COVID-19 patients with active infections since the start of the pandemic.
The hospital has 119 patients with active infections which breaks the previous record of 115 patients set on Dec. 10, 2020, said Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at the health system. Only 11 of the 119 patients are fully vaccinated.
Of patients with active infections, 18 were in the ICU and 13 of those were on a ventilator, Hawkinson said during a morning medical update. There are 43 patients in the recovery period still hospitalized because of COVID but out of the acute infection phase. That’s a total of 162 patients, up from 139 patients on Friday and 108 patients a week ago.
“We continue to have deaths — we had two inpatient deaths on Jan. 9,” he said. So far this month, the hospital has had 13 inpatient deaths.
Hawkinson addressed the view of some that patients hospitalized with COVID-19 are individuals who came to the hospital for other reasons only to then test positive for COVID.
“It think that’s a myopic view that is not taking in the totality of the information,” he said, noting that over the weekend he saw four new COVID-19 patients himself.
Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at The University of Kansas Health System, said he agreed.
“The reality is that the overwhelming majority of our patients who are COVID positive are here because they have COIVD,” Stites said. “If they didn’t have COVID, they would not be in the hospital.”
While hospitalizations are more prevalent with the delta variant, the patients currently in the hospital are primarily infected with the omicron strain of the virus, according to the two doctors.
“I’m guessing that we’re going to see a combination on hospitalizations of delta and omicron, but the majority of spread in the community is still omicron,” Stites said. “My fear is what is going to happen with all the omicron inside nursing homes and some of these other places where folks are more vulnerable.”
Stites also said schools need to bring back mask mandates if they want to keep kids, teachers, administrators and staff in school.
“You’re gonna completely undermine your ability to keep kids in school if you don’t mask,” Stites said. “It’s an unpleasant reality, but denial reality doesn’t make the reality untrue.”
