Beginning today, Jan. 7, the Unified Government Health Department will begin offering COVID-19 boosters for eligible persons ages 12 and older.
This follows authorization from the FDA and recommendations by the CDC and Kansas Department of Health and Environment expanding booster eligibility to include those who are 12 to 15 years old.
Those ages 12 and older who previously received the Pfizer vaccine are eligible to receive a booster five months after their second dose, according to the Health Department. Those ages 12 to 17 may only receive the Pfizer booster at this time.
COVID-19 boosters for people 12 and older will be available at the Health Department’s vaccination locations during normal vaccination hours:
• Kmart site, 7836 State Ave. COVID vaccines: Fridays, noon to 6 p.m. COVID tests: Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• UG Health Department building, 619 Ann Ave. COVID vaccines: Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. By appointment only. Call 913-573-8855. COVID vaccinations are free. Insurance is not required.
The latest hours and more information is online at WycoVaccines.org. Additional vaccine sites are at vaccines.gov or at vacunas.gov.
Other changes to booster and vaccine guidance
• The waiting period for boosters was shortened to five months for people who received the Pfizer vaccine. Anyone age 12 or older who was fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine is eligible for a booster five months after the second dose (shortened from the previous six-month guidance).
• Moderately or severely immunocompromised children ages 5-11 can now receive an additional primary dose of COVID-19 vaccine 28 days after their second shot. This change follows a Jan. 4 announcement by the CDC.
The seven-day rolling average of positive COVID tests in Wyandotte County shot up to 266 recently. On Thursday, there were 306 positive COVID tests in Wyandotte County, according to the Health Department. (UG Health Department graphic)
Positive COVID-19 tests totaled 306 on Thursday in Wyandotte County, leading to a “very serious” situation, according to Health Department officials.
The seven-day rolling average for positive COVID cases is 266, according to Elizabeth Groenweghe, chief epidemiologist at the Unified Government Health Department. The number was even higher on Thursday.
Those are numbers they have never seen before, Groenweghe told the Unified Government Commission during the 5 p.m. Thursday meeting.
However, the UG Commission did not even take a vote on reinstating the mask mandate here on Thursday, as recommended by the Health Department. Mayor Tyrone Garner said the UG Commission may have another review on COVID at its next meeting.
Groenweghe said the 62 percent positivity rate of tests is the highest it has ever been in Wyandotte County.
Hospitalizations from COVID-19 also are increasing quite a bit here, she said.
“Hospitalizations are truly at a crisis level now,” she said. Wyandotte County hospitals have experienced a sharp increase in COVID cases, she added.
With the increase in case numbers this week, more increases in the hospitalization rate are expected in about two weeks, according to health officials.
Groenweghe said Wyandotte County had 19 COVID deaths in December and had two deaths so far in January. Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 415 COVID deaths of Wyandotte County residents, she said.
She also said Wyandotte County is seeing more COVID cases among young adults and youths. With school starting again this week, she anticipates see a huge increase in the number of cases in schools, she said.
Currently, about 58 percent of Wyandotte County residents have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine, while 48 percent are fully vaccinated, she said. Only 13.3 percent of Wyandotte County residents have received a booster dose of the COVID vaccine currently, leaving the community very vulnerable, she said.
About 38 percent of Wyandotte County children ages 5 to 17 have received one vaccine dose, while 28 percent of that age group here are fully vaccinated, she said.
Dr. Allen Greiner, chief medical officer for Wyandotte County, said COVID inpatients at local hospitals are increasing. Even if the Omicron variant is less severe, the amount of hospitalizations is around the same amount because the disease is more transmissible.
“We’re seeing so many staff get infected that we really have a major problem,” Dr. Greiner said.
Nurses are taking care of twice or three times as many patients as usual, he said, and the mortality rate in the emergency room is three to five times higher than it normally would be, he said.
Cases also are rising at the state level in Kansas, he said, which is why the governor re-enacted a 15-day state of emergency on Thursday afternoon.
Gov. Laura Kelly issued the state of disaster emergency and signed two executive orders that temporarily suspend some statutes for adult care homes and health care providers. The action was aimed at helping hospitals and health care workers that have been overwhelmed with COVID cases. The governor said after the Legislature returns to its session, she would work with legislators on passing legislation.
Dr. Greiner said monoclonal treatments are very effective against Omicron, but are very hard to get now, with the local supply used up almost immediately when it arrives each week. Regular procedures are being delayed, and rural hospitals are having difficulties in getting patients transferred, he said.
Dr. Greiner said the increases in COVID cases can be avoided if more people get vaccinated and do more things to mitigate the spread of the virus. Boosters are more important now, he said.
Currently, 60 percent of new infections in Wyandotte County are the Omicron variant, he said. That leaves the other 40 percent, which includes a lot of Delta infections, he said.
The curves of new COVID cases are going up very fast because Omicron is two to three times more transmissible, meaning that one person who has it can transmit it to seven to nine other people.
Dr. Greiner said multiple measures were needed to reduce the spread of COVID here, including vaccinations, wearing a mask, distancing, washing hands, used at the same time to make it harder for the virus to get through.
Besides the governor declaring a state of emergency, Dr. Greiner said Johnson County has reinstated its mask mandate recently for ages 5 to 11 years old; Kansas City, Missouri, approved a new mask mandate for kindergarten through 12th grade students in school buildings on Thursday; St. Louis, Missouri, reinstated a mask mandate this week; and Douglas County, Kansas, has reinstated a mask mandate.
Dr. Greiner said masks work, as shown by a study last year of Kansas counties.
He said health officials are worried about “long COVID,” shortages of staff and resources at hospitals, and no protection for children under 5.
“Children’s Mercy has more children now (with COVID) than at any point in the pandemic,” Dr. Greiner said.
Commissioner Christian Ramirez, who voted for against lifting the mask mandate at the Dec. 16 meeting, said, “We have opened Pandora’s box and now we can’t close it.”
It bothers him that the commission allowed the mask mandate to expire, he said.
“We are seeing our health care professionals every day sacrificing themselves to where their mental, physical and psychological well-being is just not good. They’re tired, yet we just allowed it to go away. I know we’re doing what we can, but that mask requirement was something extra that we can help them with,” he said.
But it was unlikely that they would have enough votes at this time to pass another mask mandate.
Commissioner Andrew Davis, who voted in favor of ending the mask mandate Dec. 16, asked if hospitals could deny care to people who were not vaccinated, but Dr. Greiner said they are not allowed to do that. However, there are now crisis methodologies in place that allow them to triage their patients.
The commission also heard from the Rev. Tony Carter and the Rev. Glenn Brady, with the Wyandotte County Health Equity Task Force, about how churches and the local community and nonprofits worked together to reach people who were traditionally underserved in receiving medical care.
The University of Kansas Health System on Thursday morning reported 134 total COVID patients, including 96 with active infections, 19 in the intensive care unit, and 11 on ventilators. Of the COVID patients, eight were fully vaccinated. There were four patient deaths in the last 24 hours.
Vaccine sites
Currently, according to Health Department officials, the Health Department’s Kmart vaccine site at 7836 State Ave. is open from noon to 6 p.m. on Fridays for free COVID vaccines, with no appointment necessary.
The Kmart site also is open for free COVID testing from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, with no appointment necessary.
The Health Department building at 6th and Ann is open for appointments to get COVID vaccines from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. Appointments can be made to 913-573-8855.
There is also free COVID testing offered at the Kansas National Guard Armory, 18th and Ridge, in a clinic sponsored by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. That testing is available from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
There are other testing and vaccine sites and pop-up clinics that are listed at wycovaccines.org.
Other vaccines opportunities are shown at the website, www.vaccines.gov/.
Dr. Jennifer Schrimsher, a physician at Lawrence Memorial Health, was up until 2 a.m. revising contingency plans.
The hospital, like all others in Kansas, is coping with unprecedented numbers of COVID-19 patients and staff members out sick with the virus.
She doesn’t know what to do.
“We’ve offered insane amounts of overtime,” Schrimsher said. “People won’t take it because they can’t, they just mentally or physically cannot anymore. And it is heartbreaking to look at that situation and think that we may have to deliver substandard care, practice outside of our normal standards of care and just try to piece together, you know, care for patients. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Schrimsher, who is also the deputy public health officer for Douglas County, joined 17 other medical officials from Kansas and western Missouri hospitals in sounding a clarion call for public support during a news conference Wednesday. The Lawrence hospital is canceling surgeries and transferring patients to Oklahoma, she said.
Medical providers in Kansas City, Wichita, Topeka, Salina, Hays, Garden City and elsewhere provided similar reports. With record numbers of COVID-19 patients, and up to one-third of staff out sick, there is no bed space is available. At least 80% of patients in each facility are unvaccinated, including nearly 100% of patients in intensive care.
Data from Mission Control, the software hospitals use to find available bed space, shows the number of patients who died while awaiting transfer increased from eight in November to 41 last month.
There is no end in sight.
“This is our most difficult moment in the pandemic,” said Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer of the University of Kansas Health System.
He recalled a recent conversation with the chief medical officer from a rural area who told him, “We don’t do dialysis, but we can’t get anybody transferred out, and these patients are dying.” The doctor explained that he opened up a textbook, put in some catheters and tried to figure out how to do it.
“You have to face the facts head on,” Stites said. “The facts are we have an exploding number of COVID-19 patients, people aren’t using good infection control, governments have backed off mask mandates because they think they’re unpopular, and as a result, patients and people are suffering in our hospitals.”
Several officials called for Gov. Laura Kelly to issue a new emergency declaration to unlock federal aid and support from the Kansas National Guard. A spokeswoman for the governor didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Republican leaders in the Legislature forced the previous declaration to expire in mid-June, as the delta variant was arriving in the state.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show 57.2% of Kansans are fully vaccinated, including 68.6% of adults.
The latest surge, Stites said, appears to involve a 50-50 combination of delta and omicron strains of the virus. Doctors pushed back on the popular narrative that omicron is no more serious than the common cold.
“Anybody who thinks they’re not going to die from COVID-19 now because it’s omicron, that’s just wrong,” said Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at KU Health.
The KU Health system has 90 patients with active infections, including six who are fully vaccinated and 19 in ICU. More than 600 staff members, about 5% of the workforce, are out sick.
Dr. Kimberly Megow, chief medical officer at HCA Midwest Health System, which serves the KC metro area, said the hospital had to defer 128 surgeries this week.
She said the hospital is nearing the point of “crisis standard of care,” meaning doctors will start determining who gets care and who is left to die.
“That’s how bad it could get if we are completely overwhelmed, and we’re at that point already, and we suddenly have an onslaught of additional patients,” Megow said. “There have to be tough decisions made and no one on this call wants to be faced with making those decisions.”
In Salina, eight COVID-19 patients in need of care are waiting for a room. In Topeka, patients are overflowing into the recovery room at Saint Francis. In Garden City, the ICU has been full for four months.
Stites said the decision by public schools to end mask mandates as students return from winter break is “a perfectly terrible idea.”
“Kids are all gonna get sick, your staff is gonna get sick, and the school is gonna get closed,” Stites said.
At Children’s Mercy, in Kansas City, Missouri, the number of pediatric patients being treated for COVID-19 doubled in the past week, from 15 to 30. Previously, the number was never higher than 22 throughout the pandemic. One third of the current patients are in ICU. Additionally, 327 staff members are out sick.
Dr. Jennifer Watts, chief emergency medical officer at Children’s Mercy, said we know masks are safe and work on children in schools. Typically, she said, the kids aren’t the ones complaining about masks.
“It is hard to look at a child that is sick and to have that thought in your mind: If we would have worn masks in school, could this have been prevented?” Watts said. “And to have that conversation with a parent is heart-wrenching. So yeah, we are devastated that kids are not wearing masks in school.”
Dr. Kevin Dishman, the chief medical officer at Stormont Vail in Topeka, said health care providers need the community’s help to mitigate the dire consequences of failing to follow basic precautions.
“We need everyone to get vaccinated, we need everyone to wear a mask, we need everyone to social distance, and we need them to do it now,” Dishman said. “Our community can help us stop the pandemic, but we’ve got to have the cooperation of everyone in the community. People that have waved the flag of personal choice are extending this pandemic.”
