With the Labor Day holiday weekend here, doctors at the University of Kansas Health System were reminding residents to wear masks and socially distance this weekend.
Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at KU Health System, said he knew there would be a lot of big gatherings and weddings this weekend, and that people should continue wearing masks and socially distancing.
Any place people are congregating together, particularly with alcohol, they tend to lose inhibitions, he said. Sometimes they don’t wear masks, the distance is shrinking and the virus is spreading, he said.
Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control, said there is good evidence that physical distancing and masking works in reducing the risk for getting COVID-19.
Dr. Stites said some counties with colleges and universities have been showing increases, including the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, Fort Hays State University and Benedictine College.
Mask-wearing doesn’t need to be political, he said. It needs to be a thoughtful discussion, he added.
Dr. Hawkinson said people should be aware of the risk that they may be putting on other people by going places without a mask.
Dr. Christi Bartlett, a palliative medicine physician from the health system, discussed caring for those who were intensive care with COVID-19. They have taken on a role of helping with communication with the families, she said. They are helping with end-of-life care and making sure people are feeling cared for, she added.
Dr. Bartlett also explained the recent CDC report that COVID-19 was the only cause of death for 6 percent of the COVID-19 deaths. She said a death certificate often lists a few different causes leading to the actual death, and it was unusual for a certificate to have only one cause of death. She viewed certificates with COVID-19 as the only cause to be incomplete. Usually they list other factors that the patient was experiencing, she said.
While a lot of people were hopeful that only 6 percent died of COVID-19, what it means to Dr. Bartlett was that the death certificates were probably not filled out completely and correctly.
The University of Kansas Health System reported 18 acute COVID-19 patients on Friday morning, five fewer than Thursday, according to Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control. Seven patients were in the intensive care unit, an increase of one, and two were on ventilators, a decrease of one. Patients’ ages were from the 30s through the 80s. There were four other recovering patients on ventilators, but not in the acute phase. According to the doctors, there were 16 deaths in August and one so far in September at KU Health System.
Wyandotte County reported an increase of 48 cases from Thursday to Friday, with a cumulative total of 6,080. There was no change in the number of deaths, which remained at a cumulative 117.
Kansas reported an increase of 1,280 COVID-19 cases on Friday, for a cumulative total of 45,220 cases, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment statistics. There were 23 additional deaths reported, for a cumulative total of 481, according to the KDHE. There were 542 outbreaks reported, with 182 of them active.
According to KDHE, Johnson County reported 8,695 cases; Sedgwick County, 7,550; Ford County, 2,395; Shawnee County, 2,305; Finney County, 1,811; Leavenworth County, 1,750; Douglas County, 1,480; Seward County, 1,324; Riley County, 951; Lyon County, 861; Reno County, 850; Crawford County, 766; Ellis County, 532; Butler County, 520; Salina County, 494; Geary County, 326; Harvey County, 308; Cherokee County, 300; Franklin County, 271; Cowley County, 270; Barton County, 262; Montgomery County, 262; Pawnee County, 249;Miami County, 245; Jackson County (Kansas), 213; McPherson County, 204; Atchison County, 202.
To see the KU doctors’ news conference, visit https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/258786988453359.
The UG COVID-19 webpage is at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information.
The KC Region COVID-19 Hub dashboard is at http://marc-gis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/1c93961075454558b3bf0dfad014feae.
The Unified Government Health Department is collecting input on people’s experiences getting tested for COVID-19 in Wyandotte County. The survey is on the UG website at https://us.openforms.com/Form/ea97a450-3d74-4d86-8d1f-6e340d55cf7c.
The UG Health Department new school and sports guidance is online at https://alpha.wycokck.org/files/assets/public/health/documents/covid/09042020fallsportsrecommendations.pdf.
A previous UG sports order is online at https://alpha.wycokck.org/files/assets/public/health/documents/covid/08132020localhealthofficerorderregardingsports.pdf.
The Wyandotte County school start order is online at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information.
Wyandotte County is under a mandatory mask order and is in Phase 3 of the state’s reopening plan. For more information, residents may visit the UG COVID-19 website at https://alpha.wycokck.org/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Information or call 311 for more information.
The CDC’s COVID-19 web page is at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html.