The Greater Kansas City Region, which includes a nine-county area, reported a seven-day average of 708 additional daily cases on Saturday, according to the Mid-America Regional Council’s Kansas City Region COVID-19 Resource Hub.
The rate of new cases is declining slightly, according to the resource hub. The cumulative number of cases in the nine-county area was 87,430.
One additional COVID-19 death was reported, for a total of 1,073. The seven-day average of deaths per day was 5.
The daily average of new COVID-19 hospitalizations was 157 in the nine-county area. The weekly average of new COVID-19 hospitalizations in the nine-county area was 943.
The average daily number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital is 722 in the nine-county area. The number of those on ventilators is 111, which is trending up, according to the KC egion COVID-19 data page. There was an average daily number of 193 patients in the intensive care units in the nine-county area.
The Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard reported a total of 13,244,417 COVID-19 cases in the United States on Saturday. There were a cumulative 266,047 deaths.
A chart on the Johns Hopkins website showed that Kansas has been experiencing a spike in cases. (See https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases-50-states)
At a news conference on Wednesday, Dr. Lee Norman, Kansas secretary of health, said herd immunity was not a good idea. Herd immunity involves 80 to 90 percent of the population, and only about 4.9 percent of the Kansas population has had the disease and may be immune to it, he said. Doctors are concerned that more COVID-19 cases will overwhelm the hospitals and not leave enough room for other patients.
He said vaccines will be able to provide immunity to individuals, and until they are ready, masks will continue to be important.
Kansas has a vaccine plan that has been approved by the CDC, and the state now is working on the details of when and where the vaccines will be available, he said.
COVID-19 testing available Monday
Free COVID-19 testing by the UG Health Department will be available on Monday, Nov. 30. For more information, visit https://wyandotte-county-covid-19-hub-unifiedgov.hub.arcgis.com/pages/what-to-do-if-you-think-you-have-covid-19.
For more information about the testing site at the former Kmart location, visit https://alpha.wycokck.org/files/assets/public/health/documents/covid/10092020_newtestingsitewyco.pdf.
The new Wyandotte County health order with a limit of 10 persons to a gathering, and a closing time of 10 p.m. for restaurants and bars, with other new restrictions, is at https://alpha.wycokck.org/files/assets/public/health/documents/covid/11162020localhealthorderexecuted.pdf.
The UG COVID-19 webpage is at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information.
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 CDC’s COVID-19 webpage is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html.