U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, D-3rd Dist., emphasized the importance of addressing health disparities in Wyandotte County Wednesday afternoon during a Facebook Live with a Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, Health Department official.
Although black residents make up around 23 percent of Wyandotte County’s population, they represent more than half of the people testing positive for COVID-19, as well as two-thirds of COVID-19-related deaths. Wyandotte County currently has the most confirmed positive cases of coronavirus in the state.
“The data presented by public health officials in Wyandotte County shows a stark reality: black residents are disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. While there are complex, systematic issues that absolutely need to be addressed, right now we need to focus on getting as much help to Wyandotte County as possible. This includes increasing access to testing and supplies, supporting Community Health Centers, and expanding Medicaid right away,” Rep. Davids said.
Rep. Davids voted to pass the CARES Act, which provided $100 million for health services through Community Health Centers that support smaller health clinics across the country in under-served urban and rural areas.
Kansas reported 186 more COVID-19 cases today in 70 counties, according to state health officials. There were three more deaths. (Map from KDHE)The 4:30 p.m. report April 22 from the UG COVID-19 website stated there were 473 cases and 47 deaths in Wyandotte County. Riverbend statistics were updated on Wednesday, with two more deaths, and one more resident who reported positive. (From UG Health Department)
Kansas reported an additional 186 positive COVID-19 cases today, bringing the state total to 2,211 cases.
The state reported a total of 110 deaths, up three deaths from Tuesday, according to Gov. Laura Kelly.
Wyandotte County, as of the 4:30 p.m. April 22 report, had two more deaths than the 8:25 a.m. report April 21, according to the Unified Government COVID-19 webpage. There were 47 more cases, for a total of 473 positive cases in Wyandotte County.
The UG Health Department stated that two new deaths were reported today at Riverbend Post-Acute Rehabilitation facility in Kansas City, Kansas, for a total of 27 deaths at that facility.
At a news conference today, Gov. Kelly said she had signed an emergency order to allow the temporary easing of licensing requirements for advanced practice registered nurses, physician’s assistants and licensed practical nurses. The order allows those who were recently inactive to practice, and allows enrolled students to volunteer or work within facilities, she said.
The order will help the health care system have more flexibility to make sure hospitals are not overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.
Dr. Lee Norman, Kansas secretary of health, said the new order would not necessarily increase the number of health care workers, but it would allow some to work without direct supervision. It would particularly help rural areas, he said.
Gov. Kelly said there will be a gradual rollout for reopening the Kansas economy.
“There is no blueprint for what comes next,” she said. It is far more complicated than flipping a switch or rescinding an emergency order, she added.
Gov. Kelly said public safety must be paramount. The Trump administration stated last week the transition couldn’t take place until the state passes its peak and the number of cases begins to decline.
Gov. Kelly said while there are many reasons to be optimistic, Kansas is not yet at the point it needs to be to reopen. COVID-19 will need to decline, she said.
The governor has been meeting with county and local health departments to identify the needs of health care workers to reopen the economy and protect public health before a vaccine is developed.
She said specific benchmarks must be identified for Kansas to reopen safely.
The recovery timeline will be determined by testing capacity, hospital surge capacity, personal protection equipment supply and contact tracing, Gov. Kelly said. There will be benchmarks attached to these categories in the next week, she added.
The governor also said that reopening must be regionally targeted and industry specific. She said she has held discussions with the Kansas City Chamber and the Sedgwick County Chamber of Commerce. This afternoon, she planned to have discussions with the Kansas Chamber of Commerce.
Gov. Kelly said all discussions with the business community have indicated that safety will be paramount in reopening. Their response will weigh heavily in this process, she said.
The governor also said she will collect responses from sectors such as the hospitality industry, retail and barbers and hairstylist, among others.
In the next five days, the governor said she plans more discussions with health care providers, local units of government, labor leaders and the faith community.
In addition, she said she is coordinating the state’s efforts with neighboring states of Missouri and Colorado, and also will talk with Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas about working together.
Gov. Kelly said she would release more comprehensive information about the next phase by the end of next week.
Dr. Norman said the state currently is monitoring 45 clusters of COVID-19 cases.
Seventeen were in long-term care facilities, including 348 cases and 58 deaths, he said.
Other clusters included two group living facilities with 27 cases and no deaths; one correctional facility, Lansing Correctional Facility, with 82 cases and no deaths; two health care facilities with 16 cases and no deaths; five religious gatherings with 85 cases and seven deaths; 19 private companies with 81 cases and no deaths; and six meatpacking facility clusters with 168 cases and no deaths.
Dr. Norman said the state Health Department and Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services are working together with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to review infection control practices, patient safety and staff safety. He said the facility should be able to go back to a full and normal existence once there is cleaning and a number of days have passed.
Testing in Kansas now has been broadened, he said. Previously, a fever and cough were a requirement to be tested. As of Tuesday, the state no longer requires fever for testing, nor a cough. Instead, the patient must have two symptoms, which can be fever, chills, body aches, sore throat or other symptoms listed on the state’s website.
Dr. Norman said the CDC has acknowledged that as more testing is done, they are finding COVID-19 cases that did not have fever or cough.
Some additional testing is taking place in Wyandotte County and other areas.
Over the next few days, Kansas may see a jump in cases, he said. The state probably is right about at the peak right now, although that won’t be certain until more time passes, he said.
Increased testing around meatpacking plants in southwest Kansas are finding more and more cases minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic, he said. Some of the smaller counties may have manual entry of test results that may mean the state’s totals are lagging a few days, he added.
Dr. Norman said he doesn’t see more testing as negative. Wider testing will result in increased numbers, and it will help the state target where they need to be, he said. The health departments are doing contact tracing on positive cases, in order to isolate them, while they get ready to reopen.
Dr. Norman said the state received a batch of 3,000 swabs for testing this afternoon, from a third printing that started April 18. Local dentists are producing 10,000 swabs a week. By the end of the week there will be an increase of 7,000, so that swabs won’t be a limiting factor for testing in the future.
On the topic of how COVID-19 deaths are recorded, Dr. Norman said the cause of death is reported by the attending physician. The physician follows guidelines based on guidance from the CDC. There are some cases where there are comorbidities, and doctors will use their best judgment to determine the cause.
Dr. Norman is issuing a caution about serology tests for COVID-19.
He said there were more than 100 serology testing platforms before the FDA, and the tests do not have FDA approval.
The tests should not be used alone to say if a person has had COVID-19 or not. The serology tests should be combined with one of the molecular tests being given throughout the state, he said.
According to Dr. Norman, some of the serology tests might indicate that a person had coronavirus, but not the novel coronavirus COVID-19. That test could show a positive result for just a cold. If a decision is made to put someone on a COVID-19 ward because of a serology test result, and relax personal protective equipment requirements, then that person would be very vulnerable to COVID-19, and it would not serve them well, he said.
Self-administered tests at home, approved by the FDA, are a good idea, he said, especially if they keep people who have symptoms out of the doctors’ offices and emergency rooms and away from other people. At home, they can continue to isolate, he said.
Dr. Norman said he was certain that there would be a second wave of COVID-19 into the fall and winter. If it follows the patterns of past epidemics, there would be a higher peak than there is at the first peak.
Health officials have done a lot of things to push down the number of cases, he said, and broader testing will help them target certain areas where there are higher problems. They can go to problem areas and work there, he said.
Gov. Kelly said there were three phases under the White House guidelines. If they get to the third phase and a new wave hits, they would start pulling it back, she said.
A county commission in the Wichita area has discussed herd immunity as the solution, and Dr. Norman said that would be a bad idea.
Herd immunity is when a sufficient number of people in the population get a virus, and don’t transmit it because everybody has already had it. It’s a good idea if it is a minor illness without a lot of deaths associated with it, but a bad idea for COVID-19, he said. The nation would have deaths in the six or seven figures if that were done, he said. The more modern approach would be to do the other mitigating efforts, push as many cases into the future as possible, then have a vaccine and get herd immunity through the vaccine, Dr. Norman said.
Wednesday morning figures from the Unified Government COVID-19 webpage showed 458 cases, up 32 cases from Tuesday morning. (From UG COVID-19 website)A graph on the UG COVID-19 website on Wednesday morning showed positive COVID-19 cases in Wyandotte County. (From UG COVID-19 website)
There was an increase of 32 cases today in the positive COVID-19 cases in Wyandotte County, according to the Unified Government COVID-19 webpage.
Wyandotte County, which has stepped up COVID-19 testing this week, is reporting 458 positive COVID-19 cases at 10:55 a.m. Wednesday, April 22. Wyandotte County reported 426 positive cases at 8:25 a.m. Tuesday, April 21.
The number of deaths increased from 44 reported early Tuesday to 45 reported Wednesday in Wyandotte County, according to the UG’s COVID-19 webpage.
Some area hospitals are seeing a decline in the number of COVID-19 patients who are hospitalized, according to doctors participating in a University of Kansas Health System news conference on Wednesday morning.
The KU Health System on Wednesday morning had 24 COVID-19 patients, including 11 in the intensive care unit, according to Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at KU Health System. The total number is down from 26 on Tuesday. There were eight patients in ICU on Tuesday. They were awaiting results on another 20-21 patients, he said.
Doctors are dealing with changing information.
In the past, doctors have told people who were sick in January that it was not COVID-19, since the coronavirus was not reported yet in America, Dr. Hawkinson said. Recently, some new information is coming from California that stated COVID-19 might have been there in February, before it was in the state of Washington.
“The way it spreads is very insidious,” Dr. Hawkinson said. “There are still a lot of questions to be answered.”
Originally, doctors thought each person with the virus could infect two people, but now they think it is closer to five, he said.
“This is why we are really stressing the physical distancing for all this, to really stop the spread,” he said.
Some other hospitals in the Kansas City area have been experiencing declines in the numbers of COVID-19 patients hospitalized.
Truman Medical Center reported four persons with COVID-19 currently in the hospital, with two in the ICU, according to Dr. Mark Steele, executive chief clinical officer. The peak was 12 last Tuesday, he said. There are 11 patients pending testing in the hospital currently.
About 32 COVID-19 patients have been discharged to date at Truman, and they celebrate those discharges, he said. Truman has expanded its testing recently in mobile sites for Kansas City, Missouri, and Jackson County residents. He said four to five times as many African-American residents test positive for COVID-19 as white residents. He added that is one of the reasons they decided to take testing into the community.
Dr. Raghu Adiga, chief medical officer of Liberty Hospital, said the hospital currently has two COVID-19 inpatients. There are four that are awaiting test results, he said. The numbers have been flat over the past week or two, he added. The hospital started drive-through testing over a month ago, he said.
There have been more than 2,000 telehealth visits, he said. Five health care workers out of 1,000 workers have tested positive, and they were pretty much community onset, he said.
Dr. Adiga said it was important to keep social distancing in place because some studies have shown there were two patients with no symptoms or mild symptoms in the general population for every patient who sought health care.
Dr. Larry Botts, chief medical officer at AdventHealth Shawnee Mission, said the hospital currently has 11 positive COVID-19 patients, with no patients awaiting test results. They are now doing in-house testing, he said. Out of the 11 patients, there are two on ventilators, he said.
There has been a steady decrease in COVID-19 patient numbers since 26 patients on April 6, he said. There have been more than 100 discharges, and they celebrate those, he said.
AdventHealth is participating in a Mayo Clinic trial using convalescent plasma from donations to the Community Blood Center, he said. Three patients have been treated so far with plasma from recovered coronavirus patients. Dr. Botts said results from the national study will be important in the future.
