Wyandotte County reported an increase of 25 COVID-19 cases on Saturday, Feb. 13, according to the Unified Government’s COVID-19 webpage. There were a cumulative 17,340 cases. There was a cumulative total of 247 deaths, an increase of two since Friday.
The Mid-America Regional Council’s COVID-19 dashboard reported 153,153 cumulative COVID-19 cases on Saturday. There were 2,029 cumulative deaths, and 104 was the daily average of new hospitalizations.
The state of Kansas reported 286,102 COVID-19 cases statewide on Friday, an increase of 1,208 cases since Wednesday, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. There were an additional 61 deaths reported, with a cumulative total of 4,364.
The Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard on Saturday night reported 27,574,202 cases in the United States, with 484,200 total deaths nationwide.
Free COVID-19 tests Monday
Free COVID-19 tests will be available from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Monday, Feb. 15, at Oak Ridge Baptist Church, 9301 Parallel Parkway, Kansas City, Kansas. The tests are through the Wyandotte County Health Equity Task Force. Appointments are not necessary.
The Unified Government Health Department’s COVID-19 test site at the former Kmart building at 78th and State will be closed Monday, Presidents Day. It will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 16. Appointments are not needed for COVID-19 tests. To see if there is any change to the schedule, visit https://www.facebook.com/UGHealthDept.
The Health Department is now offering saliva COVID-19 tests to the public. Tests from the Health Department are free for those who live or work in Wyandotte County.
The tests are open to asymptomatic people as well as those who have symptoms or have been exposed to COVID-19. Check with the UG Health Department’s Facebook page to see if there have been any changes in the schedule. Bring something that shows that you live or work in Wyandotte County, such as a utility bill.
Testing at Pierson Community Center will be closed on Monday, Presidents Day. COVID-19 tests also will be available by appointment starting at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16, at the Pierson Community Center parking lot, 1800 S. 55th St., Kansas City, Kansas. Hours are subject to change depending on the weather and other factors. These tests are through WellHealth Management. Appointments are required at the Pierson Community Center. For more information and to schedule a test, visit www.GoGetTested.com/Kansas.
Wyandotte County residents who are interested in getting a COVID-19 vaccine may fill out a survey form at the UG Health Department at https://us.openforms.com/Form/2f2bcc68-3b6a-450b-9007-d39819db6572. Residents will be contacted to make an appointment when vaccine becomes available. The Health Department currently is vaccinating high-contact critical workers, as well as residents over 85.
Cards and letters of encouragement for caregivers at KU Health System may be sent to Share Joy, care of Patient Relations, 4000 Cambridge St., Mailstop 1021, Kansas City, Kansas, 66160. Emails can be sent to [email protected].
Wyandotte County is under a mandatory mask and social distancing order.
While vaccine distribution is ramping up, testing is still a critical part of reducing the spread of COVID-19, according to Gov. Laura Kelly.
Gov. Kelly said the state’s free COVID-19 testing program has been extended through the end of March with the most recent round of federal coronavirus funds. She made the comments on a conference call with local officials on Friday morning.
The state’s testing program is found at gogettested.com/Kansas, where individuals may find a testing location and make an appointment for a test. Identifying cases early is how they can save lives, she said.
Gov. Kelly said the state is making progress distributing vaccines, and has launched the new Find My Vaccine tool on the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s vaccine page.
They are working to add more sites and providers to the vaccine finder, she said.
On Friday, the Find My Vaccine map showed two Wyandotte County vaccine providers, both from the Unified Government Health Department.
Nearly 250,000 Kansans have been vaccinated, about 8.5 percent of the population, Gov. Kelly said.
The governor said there have been more efforts to facilitate communication between her administration and the local health departments. She said recently the state was working with local providers to administer vaccines to long-term care facilities that were not part of the federal partnership. The KDHE received a list of 61 homes and matched facilities with a local health department or pharmacy partner, and were able to get the residents vaccinated within a week.
Then they expanded to other senior care living sites to offer more vaccinations, she said.
Gov. Kelly said the Biden administration told her that Kansas would receive close to 90,000 doses of vaccination next week, about double what the state received three weeks ago. She said Kansas is continuing to urge the federal government to increase the amount of vaccine doses.
This week, the state was scheduled to receive almost 10,000 more vaccine doses that will go directly to 82 pharmacies to help distribute vaccinations in local communities, she said.
Dr. Lee Norman, Kansas health secretary, said the rate of cases at hospitals across the state is going down dramatically.
Also, staff are back, healthy and absenteeism has been reduced, he said, as health care workers have received vaccines.
One hospital had 80 to 90 employees out from quarantines or COVID isolation, and is now below five, he said. Staffing shortages are not a problem for most hospitals currently in Kansas.
Locally, the University of Kansas Health System had felt the pinch of a shortage when employees were quarantined or sick, and the numbers greatly improved after vaccinations were started, according to a spokesman.
Dr. Norman said some nursing home facilities in the state are starting to allow visitors in one at a time, if they are screened. Some are doing antigen testing, a 15-minute test, to make sure people are not bringing coronavirus into the facility.
Gov. Kelly said guidelines for visitation come from the CMS at the federal level. The federal agency creates guidelines, then the counties adopt their own guidelines based on the metrics in their own community. Most counties still have a positivity rate that’s too high to allow visitations, she said.
The state is requesting that CMS update its guidelines on visitation programs when the vaccinations are implemented and completed, to see if the guidelines can be relaxed a bit, Gov. Kelly said.
Also during the conference call, Major Gen. David Weishaar, adjutant general of Kansas, and director of the division of emergency management, reported that the state emergency operations center had about 70 requests from counties recently. Requests were around 300 when they started, he said. The requests generally are for lab supplies, personal protective equipment and sample transport. The Kansas National Guard delivered 372 cases of PPE, and vaccines and ventilators also were delivered.
The biggest challenge currently for PPE is gloves, and multiple orders have gone unfilled for gloves, he said.
The Kansas National Guard helped in the testing at Ellis County recently, where a variant strain was found.
In the past few days they have been helping with potential response actions because of snow and cold weather, he said.
They are preparing and planning for the increased distribution of vaccines and mobile vaccination sites, he said.
Gov. Kelly said 200,000 vaccines have not gone missing, and that there were discrepancies in reporting the vaccines. There have been glitches in providers putting in all the data they need to enter correctly in order for one program to transfer the information to the CDC, she said.
They are working on technological fixes that need to be in place, she said. There is some provider delay, and some are holding onto vaccines in a very limited amount, she said. They are making calls to people to encourage them to get the vaccines to others, if they can’t use them.
The governor said they are working on a plan that will fix some of the reporting problems.
Also, she said the vaccines being shipped to pharmacies this week initially will be distributed to those 65 and above.
Dr. Norman also described the state’s recent efforts in COVID-19 testing in Ellis County and at Fort Hays State University, where a variant of COVID-19, B117, the UK variant, was found. The state found only one other COVID-19 case after testing 196 people, he said, which shows that a good masking and distancing program had been in effect there.
Effect of virus variants
When asked at the KU Health System news conference Friday morning about the effects of the COVID-19 variants, Amanda Cackler, director of quality and safety, said that what stands out right now is that the numbers are going down. It suggests there has been a change in social behaviors, which is a good thing, she said.
They also don’t see anything suggesting the dynamic of transmission is different, in regard to the size of the droplet, she said. The respiratory protection measures they put into place should be the same mitigation strategies going forward with the variant, she said.
“I don’t think that’s concerning, it’s just suggesting we need to continue good masking behaviors,” Cackler said.
She advised people to get the vaccine when they get the call, reducing the likelihood of being exposed to anyone with COVID-19 by staying in your bubble, good hand hygiene and staying home when you’re ill.
Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control, said the UK variant B117 was up to about 5 percent of the variants they had identified in Florida. A few months ago, it was only .4 percent to .6 percent, he said, showing it had increased there.
He hasn’t seen any data that shows the variant has increased where it was identified in Kansas, he said. In the rolling seven-day average for the Kansas City area, they haven’t seen an uptick in COVID-19 cases, but instead, a downturn recently, he said.
“We are always on the lookout, we know the state of Kansas is ramping up their genomic sequencing,” Dr. Hawkinson said. They will continue to follow it, he added.
COVID-19 case numbers reported
The total number of COVID-19 active and recovering COVID-19 patients at the University of Kansas Health System was 75 on Friday, an increase of one since Thursday, according to Dr. Hawkinson. There were 25 active COVID-19 patients in the hospital, a decrease of two from Thursday. Eight of those patients were in the intensive care unit, no change from Thursday, with seven on ventilators, an increase of one since Thursday. There were another 50 patients hospitalized because of COVID-19 who were out of the acute phase, an increase of three since Thursday.
Wyandotte County reported an increase of 112 COVID-19 cases on Friday, Feb. 12, according to the Unified Government’s COVID-19 webpage. There were a cumulative 17,315 cases. There was a cumulative total of 245 deaths, the same as Thursday.
The Mid-America Regional Council’s COVID-19 dashboard reported 153,002 cumulative COVID-19 cases on Friday. There were 2,018 cumulative deaths, and 110 was the daily average of new hospitalizations.
The state of Kansas reported 286,102 COVID-19 cases statewide on Friday, an increase of 1,208 cases since Wednesday, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. There were an additional 61 deaths reported, with a cumulative total of 4,364.
The Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard on Friday night reported 27,492,025 cases in the United States, with 480,887 total deaths nationwide.
Free COVID-19 tests Saturday
COVID-19 tests also will be available by appointment starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 13, at the Pierson Community Center parking lot, 1800 S. 55th St., Kansas City, Kansas. Hours are subject to change depending on the weather and other factors. These tests are through WellHealth Management. Appointments are required at the Pierson Community Center. For more information and to schedule a test, visit www.GoGetTested.com/Kansas.
The Unified Government Health Department’s COVID-19 test site at the former Kmart building at 78th and State will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 16. Appointments are not needed for COVID-19 tests. The site will be closed on Presidents Day, Monday, Feb. 15. To see if there is any change to the schedule, visit https://www.facebook.com/UGHealthDept.
The Health Department is now offering saliva COVID-19 tests to the public. Tests from the Health Department are free for those who live or work in Wyandotte County.
The tests are open to asymptomatic people as well as those who have symptoms or have been exposed to COVID-19. Check with the UG Health Department’s Facebook page to see if there have been any changes in the schedule. Bring something that shows that you live or work in Wyandotte County, such as a utility bill.
Wyandotte County residents who are interested in getting a COVID-19 vaccine may fill out a survey form at the UG Health Department at https://us.openforms.com/Form/2f2bcc68-3b6a-450b-9007-d39819db6572. Residents will be contacted to make an appointment when vaccine becomes available. The Health Department currently is vaccinating high-contact critical workers, as well as residents over 85.
Cards and letters of encouragement for caregivers at KU Health System may be sent to Share Joy, care of Patient Relations, 4000 Cambridge St., Mailstop 1021, Kansas City, Kansas, 66160. Emails can be sent to [email protected].
Wyandotte County is under a mandatory mask and social distancing order.
A clinical trial at the University of Kansas Medical Center will test new treatments for COVID-19.
Dr. Mario Castro, pulmonologist and researcher, is enrolling COVID-19 positive patients in an ACTIV-2 trial of four new therapies. He spoke during a news conference Thursday morning at the University of Kansas Health System.
The four include a new monoclonal antibody from AstraZeneca that could be infused or injected; one that uses interferon as a nebulized treatment; and an oral pill that should be taken four times a day, he said.
The monoclonal antibody counts for two treatments, one infused and one injected. Injections would save time and would be more easily available to patients. If the injection trial works and is approved, one day patients could go to the doctor’s office and get two injections instead of having to go to an infusion center, he said.
If the interferon treatment works and is approved, patients one day could go to the doctor’s office, get a nebulized treatment and take a nebulizer home with them for a week and quarantine, he said. Some asthma patients currently use the interferon treatment, inhaled through a nebulizer.
The fourth treatment, an oral pill that is an enzyme inhibitor, is the most exciting, Dr. Castro said. A COVID-19 patient could be prescribed a pill by the doctor, and take it four times a day.
They don’t know yet if any of the treatments will work, and they are seeking volunteers to participate in the trials, he said.
“The vaccines will get there, but we’re always going to have COVID-19 or some variant of coronavirus, and we need to have new treatments. We just have too few treatments available for these viral infections,” Dr. Castro said.
Those who are eligible for the trial have had a positive COVID-19 test result within a week (earlier is better), and are over 18 years old, he said. They are outpatients. There are some conditions that will be excluded from the trials, he added. Those conditions will be discussed when patients call Luigi Boccardi to enroll in the trials at 913-588-4022.
The treatments have been used in the past for other conditions, and there is a lot of safety data behind them, Dr. Castro said.
The KU Medical Center is one of more than 90 other sites in the United States participating in the clinical trials.
Dr. Castro also has been leading other trials at KU Health System, including the trial of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which also was being conducted at many sites. He is the division chief for pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine, and vice chair for clinical and translational research at KU Medical Center.
COVID-19 case numbers reported
The total number of COVID-19 active and recovering COVID-19 patients at the University of Kansas Health System was 74 on Thursday, a decrease of two since Wednesday, according to Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control. There were 27 active COVID-19 patients in the hospital, a decrease of three from Wednesday. Eight of those patients were in the intensive care unit, a decrease of one since Wednesday, with six on ventilators, an increase of one since Wednesday. There were another 47 patients hospitalized because of COVID-19 who were out of the acute phase, an increase of one since Wednesday.
Wyandotte County reported an increase of 36 COVID-19 cases on Thursday, Feb. 11, according to the Unified Government’s COVID-19 webpage. There were a cumulative 17,293 cases. There was a cumulative total of 245 deaths, the same as Wednesday.
The Mid-America Regional Council’s COVID-19 dashboard reported 152,561 cumulative COVID-19 cases on Thursday. There were 1,996 cumulative deaths, and 104 was the daily average of new hospitalizations.
The state of Kansas reported 284,894 COVID-19 cases statewide on Wednesday, an increase of 1,934 cases since Monday, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. There were an additional 106 deaths reported, with a cumulative total of 4,303.
The Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard on Thursday night reported 27,390,465 cases in the United States, with 475,291 total deaths nationwide.
Free COVID-19 tests Friday
COVID-19 tests also will be available Friday, Feb. 12, at the Pierson Community Center parking lot, 1800 S. 55th St., Kansas City, Kansas. Hours are subject to change depending on the weather and other factors. These tests are through WellHealth Management. Appointments are required at the Pierson Community Center. For more information and to schedule a test, visit www.GoGetTested.com/Kansas.
The Unified Government Health Department’s COVID-19 test site at the former Kmart building at 78th and State will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 12. Appointments are not needed for COVID-19 tests. To see if there is any change to the schedule, visit https://www.facebook.com/UGHealthDept.
The Health Department is now offering saliva COVID-19 tests to the public. Tests from the Health Department are free for those who live or work in Wyandotte County.
The tests are open to asymptomatic people as well as those who have symptoms or have been exposed to COVID-19. Check with the UG Health Department’s Facebook page to see if there have been any changes in the schedule. Bring something that shows that you live or work in Wyandotte County, such as a utility bill.
Wyandotte County residents who are interested in getting a COVID-19 vaccine may fill out a survey form at the UG Health Department at https://us.openforms.com/Form/2f2bcc68-3b6a-450b-9007-d39819db6572. Residents will be contacted to make an appointment when vaccine becomes available. The Health Department currently is vaccinating high-contact critical workers, as well as residents over 85.
Cards and letters of encouragement for caregivers at KU Health System may be sent to Share Joy, care of Patient Relations, 4000 Cambridge St., Mailstop 1021, Kansas City, Kansas, 66160. Emails can be sent to [email protected].
Wyandotte County is under a mandatory mask and social distancing order.
