Month: June 2021

Vaccines make a difference for youth sports

COVID-19 vaccines have made a difference for young athletes and sports this summer and fall.

According to Dr. David Smith, medical director of youth sports medicine, summer and fall looks more normal for youth sports, with the availability of vaccines for those 12 and older. He discussed youth sports at the Wednesday morning media update at the University of Kansas Health System.

He serves on the Kansas State High School Activities Association Sports Medicine Advisory Committee.

Occasionally, there have been reports of parents who didn’t cooperate with contact tracing involving their children in sports activities.

Some young athletes may think that if people find out they are positive for COVID-19, then the athlete will have to stay out for 10 days, some other members of the team who were exposed may not get to play and the team will be mad at them.

However, Dr. Smith said honesty is the best policy, and if people think their children have been exposed, they should get them tested.

“If not for yourself, do it for those you’re around,” he said.

He also said when he meets someone who is not convinced to get their young athlete vaccinated, he tries to sit down and talk to them about their concerns. It’s better to talk to your doctor about your concerns than to consult the internet, he said.

Free walk-in vaccinations available

The Kansas National Guard Armory at 100 S. 20th (near 18th and Ridge) will be open for free walk-in vaccinations for everyone 12 and older from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, June 17. The vaccines are through the Unified Government Health Department.

Free vaccines also are available from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday at the Vibrant Health Argentine location, 1428 S. 32nd St., Kansas City, Kansas.
People may also schedule vaccinations at WycoVaccines.org. Residents may request rides to the vaccination clinic through a form on the same website.

The Unified Government Health Department vaccination hours changed recently. To see the schedule and more information about vaccinations, visit WycoVaccines.org or https://www.facebook.com/UGHealthDept.

Those who receive COVID-19 vaccinations are asked to consider bringing an ID to make the process go faster.

The Health Department is doing more mobile COVID-19 vaccinations, and people may request vaccines to be given at different sites in the community by going to WycoVaccines.org and clicking on “mobile vaccine request.” People also may request a ride to vaccination sites on the same page.

Those who wish to schedule an appointment may use the Health Department’s self-scheduling tool at WycoVaccines.org and click on a blue button that says, “Click here to schedule an appointment online.” The page is available in Spanish by clicking at the top of the page. Walk-in appointments also are welcome.

Those who don’t have an internet connection may call 3-1-1 or 913-573-5311 for assistance in scheduling their vaccination appointment time and date.

To see more information about Health Department vaccinations and next week’s schedule, visit WycoVaccines.org.

Other sites available for vaccinations

Vaccinations at KU Health System are open to the public. Current patients may use MyChart to make an appointment. Others may call 913-588-1227 or visit kansashealthsystem.com/vaccine to make an appointment to get vaccinated. KU Health System currently is vaccinating residents of Kansas and Missouri who are 12 or older, by appointment only. Those under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian throughout the appointment.

There are also pharmacies giving free COVID-19 vaccinations in Wyandotte County by appointment, when available. These include Price Chopper and Hen House pharmacies, which are now also accepting walk-in vaccinations or appointments, and are starting vaccinations for age 12 and up at those pharmacies that are giving Pfizer vaccine (see https://www.ballsfoodspharmacy.com/).

CVS has announced walk-in appointments for COVID-19 vaccine at some of its stores. Those interested in getting a vaccination at a CVS pharmacy are asked to visit a CVS website in order to make sure there is vaccine available. The website is at www.cvs.com/. Walgreens and Walmart also were listed on www.vaccines.gov as giving vaccinations.

Other pharmacies and sites giving vaccines are listed at www.vaccines.gov. The website also tells whether vaccines are in stock at the locations.

Case numbers reported

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control, reported the COVID-19 case numbers at the University of Kansas Health System were steady on Wednesday morning. Fifteen active COVID-19 patients were being treated at the hospital, the same as Tuesday. Two patients were in the intensive care unit, no change. One was on a ventilator, the same as Tuesday. Ten other patients were still in the hospital, in the recovery phase, an increase of three.. There were 25 total COVID-19 patients, an increase of three. Only one of the active patients is fully vaccinated, and that patient was COVID-positive since December and is very severely immunosuppressed. Another unvaccinated patient was on life support in the ICU. Other hospitals in the Kansas City area were seeing a slight increase in patients.

Wyandotte County reported an increase of 13 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, June 16, for a cumulative 18,953 cases, according to the Unified Government Health Department’s COVID-19 webpage. There was a cumulative total of 299 deaths reported, no change.

The Mid-America Regional Council’s COVID-19 dashboard reported 175,739 cumulative COVID-19 cases on Wednesday in the Kansas City region. The daily average of new hospitalizations was 52.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported 316,343 cumulative COVID-19 cases in Kansas on Wednesday, June 16, an increase of 329 cases since Monday. There were a total of 5,125 cumulative deaths reported statewide, an increase of three.

The Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard on Wednesday night reported 33,498,506 cumulative COVID-19 cases in the United States, with 600,653 total deaths reported nationwide. There were 11,304 new cases nationwide and 339 new deaths nationwide.
States with high numbers of new cases were Texas, 1,338; California, 1,261; Missouri, 582; Louisiana, 559; and Washington, 433.
Countries with high numbers of new cases were Brazil, 80,609; India, 62,224; Argentina, 27,260; Colombia, 22,677; and U.S., 11,304.

Free testing available

Free COVID-19 testing is available from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Vibrant Health Cordell D. Meeks Jr. Clinic, formerly Children’s Mercy West, 4313 State Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.

Free COVID-19 testing will be offered from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 16, at the former Kmart store, 7836 State Ave., Kansas City, Kansas, at the Health Department’s central location.

Wyandotte County residents may contact the Health Department at wycohelp.org to sign up for a test to be delivered to their home.

For more details about free COVID-19 testing offered by the UG Health Department, visit https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/pages/what-to-do-if-you-think-you-have-covid-19, https://www.facebook.com/UGHealthDept or call 3-1-1.

The Health Department’s general contact page is at https://www.wycokck.org/Health/Contact.aspx. The department’s Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/UGHealthDept.

Testing sites are at https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/pages/what-to-do-if-you-think-you-have-covid-19. There are more test sites listed on this page.

Saliva testing is now offered at the UG Health Department. For more information, visit https://alpha.wycokck.org/files/assets/public/health/documents/covid/02042021-ugphd-saliva-testing-available.pdf.

The KU doctors’ news conference is at https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/328302978916960.

The University of Kansas Health System COVID-19 update page is at https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/330310795391910.

A vaccine report for the state of Kansas is at
https://www.kansasvaccine.gov/DocumentCenter/View/123/Vaccine-Historical-Document-22521?bidId=.

The KDHE’s COVID-19 webpage is at https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/.

The KC Region COVID-19 Hub dashboard is at https://marc2.org/covidhub/.

The Wyandotte County page on the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 website is at https://bao.arcgis.com/covid-19/jhu/county/20209.html.

The Johns Hopkins Data in Motion, a presentation on critical COVID-19 data in the past 24 hours, is at https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/covid-19-daily-video.

Economic development projects here received boost from state

The Urban Outfitters development, near 118th and State, is one of several economic development efforts in Wyandotte County. This photo is from early May. (Photo by Steve Rupert)

by Mary Rupert

Wyandotte County has been a big beneficiary of economic development efforts in Kansas, according to Gov. Laura Kelly.

The state intensified economic development efforts in the past few years, moving up in state rankings for its efforts and recently receiving the Gold Shovel Award from Area Development magazine, she said on Tuesday. Only eight states received the award, and Kansas was the only small state that received this economic development award this year, she said.

“We set a record for new capital investment in 2020,” Gov. Kelly said. “We brought in over $2.5 billion in capital investment, more than ever before. And we are on target to beat that record in 2021.”

The award was a recognition of the work the Kansas Department of Commerce has done with the local communities, she added.

Gov. Kelly said they have closed the deal on about $6 billion of capital investment projects in Kansas since she took office in 2019. In addition, they have brought in about 26,000 jobs to the state, she said.

Wyandotte County has been a major beneficiary of the state’s economic development efforts and local efforts, she said.

Since 2019 they’ve closed on about 33 or so new projects with over 3,500 jobs associated with those in new capital investments, she said.

In the past year or two, despite the pandemic, Wyandotte County has seen some big projects announced, such as Urban Outfitters, an Amazon warehouse, the Turner Logistics Center and the redevelopment of the former Schlitterbahn water park into the planned Homefield complex. There have been many other smaller projects in Wyandotte County, and together they make a huge difference, Gov. Kelly said.

A lot of these and other projects here have had assistance from the state in various incentives. For example, parts of the Homefield amended project was going through state approval as recently as last week, according to Unified Government officials.

The governor said the return on investment is huge from all these projects.

“Kansas really does get a lot more back than we give,” she said. “It’s imperative that we make investments to grow our economy. You can’t do it any other way.”

After the tax experiment of the Brownback years, the Commerce Department was decimated, she said, with not enough staff to recruit and work with businesses. Gov. Kelly redirected resources in 2019, re-establishing programs such as the international trade commission and office of rural prosperity, focusing on more economic development.

“That investment pales in comparison to the return on the dollar,” Gov. Kelly said.

Medicaid expansion

One of the governor’s goals in office was to expand Medicaid. That didn’t happen this year in the Kansas Legislature, as lawmakers adjourned without taking a vote on it. Expect to see it again next year.

“I will not give up. It is absolutely imperative that we expand Medicaid,” Gov. Kelly said.

In Missouri, residents voted to expand Medicaid, only to see a decision not to fund it from the legislature, and then a court case over it, according to news reports.

Kansas is now the only state in the Midwest that has not expanded Medicaid, she said.

“That is not only bad for our people and businesses, it makes it very difficult to recruit and retain medical professionals,” Gov. Kelly said.

If medical professionals are located anywhere near the border, many of them will go to one of the states that has expanded Medicaid, she said.

Medicaid expansion also is very helpful to rural hospitals, many of whom are close to closure and need the expansion to keep their doors open, she said.

“Not to mention that we’ve left over $5 billion in Kansas taxpayer money sent to Washington, D.C., and disbursed to 38 other states that have expanded Medicaid, rather than coming back to Kansas to take care of our people and grow our economy,” Gov. Kelly said.

Unemployment system

The unemployment system in Kansas was swamped when the pandemic hit, with hundreds of thousands of people applying for benefits and some unable to get them.

Gov. Kelly said the computer system in place at the start of the pandemic dated back to 1977, the year that Elvis died, and while it could handle the usual 7,000 to 10,000 applicants, it was swamped by hundreds of thousands of applications in the pandemic.

The governor said the modernization process for that system had started with the Parkinson administration, but it was pulled by the Brownback administration, which stopped the project. When Kelly became governor, she started working toward modernization, and then the pandemic hit, she added.

“We had to stop working on modernization to respond to the surge in applications and just do patchwork,” she said.

Not only did the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits increase, but also a new federal program with some changes had to be added at the state level. Hundreds of people were brought in to work in the agency to respond to the claims.

Gov. Kelly said the state now has a modernization system in the works that is being fast-tracked and may be completed in a few years. Normally, it would take about four to five years to revamp the computer system, she said.

Transportation plan

Gov. Kelly’s administration also passed the fourth comprehensive transportation plan. Instead of selecting all the projects and putting them in the pipeline for the next 10 years, they are putting them on a basis of just a few years. In the past, sometimes local community needs changed during the 10 years.

Local communities are able to leverage their dollars with the state’s dollars, and they’re able to get more projects in the pipeline, she said.

One of her goals when elected was to close the “Bank of KDOT” by fiscal year 2023, she said. “We are on track to do that,” Gov. Kelly said.

In the past, transfers to the highway fund were not being made by the state, and dollars intended for transportation projects were not always used for them, but were borrowed for other uses.

When she was in the Senate, they overturned the Brownback tax experiment, and then they changed that “Bank of KDOT” practice, she said.

“Since I’ve been governor, I’ve been able to put together three budgets that fund our schools, fund our roads and fund other vital state services,” she said.

Monarchs win 3-1 as Shaffer stops RailCats

It was a slow start in the 3-1 win for the Monarchs on Tuesday night Night at Legends Field in Kansas City, Kansas.

It was a battle of the pitchers between winning Monarchs right-handed pitcher Justin Shaffer (2-1) and losing RailCats right-hander Jack Alkrie (1-3) in the first six innings with six strikeouts each.

Shaffer allowed one run on six hits during six innings of pitching.

“It was [Shaffer’s] best outing,” Monarchs manager Joe Calfapietra said, “He had most control of everything–his pitches, his body–he was just in total command of the game.”

Gary SouthShore scored one run in the fourth inning, unequaled until the sixth when Kansas City ended the inning with runs scored by Morgan McCullough, Darnell Sweeney and Ryan Grotjohn.

“[McCullough] does an outstanding job,” Calfapietra said, “No matter what role you put him in, he gets outs, we wouldn’t be in this situation without him,”

Shaffer, the winning pitcher, is now 2-1, and Carlos Diaz got the save. The losing pitcher, Jack Alkrie, is now 1-3.

Kansas City (13-10) and Gary SouthShore (13-13) will meet for the second game of the series Wednesday afternoon at 1 p.m.

The game can be heard on the Monarchs Broadcast Network with the pre-game beginning at 12:40 p.m. Wednesday and the video stream will air on aabaseball.tv.

-Information from Monarchs