‘Not out of the woods yet’: COVID cases at Kansas City area hospitals remains high
Hospitals in the Kansas City area are reporting they may be past the peak in the omicron surge, but they urged people to remain vigilant because there continues to be a high volume of COVID-19 cases and related deaths, chief medical officers said Wednesday.
“COVID cases here appear to be holding but it is no reason to let up on the gas as both cases and hospitalizations though better, still remain higher than any other prior surge in the pandemic,” Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer for The University of Kansas Health System said during a briefing Wednesday morning. “We are not out of the woods yet.”
Although cases are trending down from peak of the surge, they still remain quite high and people need to resist the urge to become cocky, he said.
“Don’t do the second half Chiefs thing,” Stites said, referencing a poor performance by the Kansas City Chiefs leading to a loss in the AFC Championship game over the weekend. “Don’t get real comfortable and then think you can violate all the rules because it doesn’t work like that because then the cases can go right back up.”
Chief medical officers from the Kansas City area reported that hospitalizations have appeared to have crested or are plateauing from the peak in the omicron surge. For most, cases are just beginning to trend downward. Deaths are also going down too.
But January was a deadly month, with many Kansas City hospitals reporting the highest number of deaths in a month since the beginning of the pandemic. The deaths were mostly preventable too if the patients had been fully vaccinated.
The University of Kansas Health Systems reported it had 54 COVID deaths during January.
As of Wednesday, there were 95 COVID patients with the active virus. Twenty-six of those patients were in the ICU, with 14 on ventilators. The hospital had another 91 patients in the recovery period, for a total of 186 patients, said Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control.
“I think we need to continue to advocate for vaccination, but overall, the numbers are better,” he said.
At AdventHealth Shawnee Mission, the number of hospitalizations are improving. As of Wednesday, the hospital had 43 COVID patients with active infection with 21 patients in recovery for a total of 64 patients, said Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lisa Hays.
That’s down from the peak of 95 total patients on Jan. 11. The hospital had 26 patient deaths in January.
“I know of one in the last 24 hours as well,” Hays said. “So we are continuing to see people passing away from this disease.”
Dr. Raghu Adiga, chief medical officer for Liberty Hospital, said he remains cautiously optimistic because the number of COVID patients has dropped 50% from its peak a couple weeks ago. The hospital was reporting 32 COVID patients with 16 in the ICU and five of those on ventilators. The hospital has been able to scale back up delayed procedures.
“We also lost a lot of people and we continue to lose a lot of people to COVID,” he said. “We lost 36 people in the month of January. That’s a lot for us.”
Staffing shortages and supply chain issues remain and they are not going away, he said. In Kansas City’s Northland, COVID rates are still extremely high — higher than the delta peak.
At Olathe Health, they were feeling like they had a small miracle, said Dr. Elizabeth Long, chief medical officer. The hospital has seen the number of COVID patients drop from a high of 57 around Jan. 11 to 13 on Wednesday, two of whom who were on ventilators in the ICU.
“This has given us a chance to take a deep breath,” she said. “I echo everybody’s thought process in that we can see how quickly this turns. It can go up and it can go down very, very quickly.”
At North Kansas City Hospital, there were 65 COVID deaths in January. The previous monthly high was 47 at the beginning of the pandemic.
The hospital reported that it had 77 COVID patients with the active virus and 46 patients in recovery for a total of 123 patients. Sixteen patients were in the ICU and 14 of those were on ventilators. The hospital saw its peak in the surge on Jan. 15, when it had a total of 145 patients.
University Health reported that it had a total of 87 COVID patients at its two hospitals on Wednesday, down from a peak of 137 patients on Jan. 19. It had a record high of deaths in January, with 36 COVID patients dying. The previous high was 22 deaths in August.
