Tag: COVID-19

The first coronavirus vaccines will go to health care workers, nursing home residents and staff, following a vote on Tuesday by the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

About 21 million health care workers and 3 million residents and staff at nursing homes and long-term care facilities will receive the first doses of the vaccine.

Dr. Kevin Ault, an obstetrician at the University of Kansas Health System who is on the federal committee, said the committee had to make decisions about who would get the doses first.

The challenging part of Tuesday’s vote was that complete data isn’t in yet from the Phase 3 trials, and the committee would like to know what the safety and efficacy of the vaccine is in the long-term care population, he said. Data is expected to become available next week for the first vaccine, he added.

Dr. Ault, who was not speaking on behalf of the CDC, has served on the federal committee for more than 10 years and also participated in planning for the H1N1 vaccination.

The reason long-term care facilities came to the front of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution was because of the tremendous mortality in that group, with about 100,000 deaths in the United States, he said.

The local facilities will decide which health care workers get the vaccines first at their institutions, he said. Those who work in the intensive care units may be among the first health care workers to be vaccinated at some hospitals.

Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System, said the health care workers at KU Health System who would be vaccinated first would include those who have direct contact with COVID-19 patients, then physicians, nursing, dietary, and housecleaning workers who are around COVID-19 patients. After that, the rest of the health care workers would be vaccinated.

He said vaccinating nursing home residents and staff is a critical piece that will help hospitals because they are often a source of patients that come directly to the intensive care unit.

Dr. Ault said today’s vote was “interim guidance.” Between now and the winter holidays there may be quite a bit of additional voting and more news about the two vaccines that have applied for emergency use authorization, he said.

It’s possible that after about a week after the FDA approves the vaccine, it could be shipped, Dr. Ault said. There is a challenging handling process with some of the vaccines because of the temperatures, he added. There are many facilities in Kansas and Missouri that can handle the low freezer temperatures necessary, according to Dr. Stites.

Another challenge is there are about 20 million people in the health care workers group, and 3 million in the nursing home group, and everyone will need two doses, Dr. Ault said. Probably for the first few weeks, and possibly months, of the rollout, all the vaccines will be going to these two groups, he said.

The state health agency will be in charge of distribution in each state, and there is also a plan in each state that specifies who will be the first recipients.

Dr. Stites said that once the vaccines are shipped to a local institution, such as a hospital, the hospital will make decisions about how it may be distributed among the health care workers, and the distribution may be a little different at each hospital.

Dr. Stites said the big question may be how many doses each state will get, and they don’t know that yet.

Those health workers who get the early vaccine may be able to use a cell phone program to report any side effects, according to Dr. Ault.

Case numbers increase

KU Health System reported 101 active COVID-19 patients were hospitalized on Tuesday morning, with 53 patients in the intensive care unit and 24 on ventilators, according to Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control. On Monday, there were 102 active patients, 46 in the ICU and 30 on ventilators. There were an additional 58 patients still hospitalized because of COVID-19, but who are in the recovery phase, an increase from 50 on Monday. The total on Tuesday was 159, up from 152 on Monday.

At HaysMed in Hays, Kansas, there were 32 COVID-19 patients hospitalized, a decrease from 35 on Monday. Twenty-four were active COVID-19 patients and eight were in the recovery phase.

Wyandotte County reported an additional 60 COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, for a cumulative total of 11,021, according to the Unified Government COVID-19 webpage. There were an additional two deaths reported, for a cumulative total of 180.

The Mid-America Regional Council’s Kansas City Region COVID-19 Resource Hub reported 1,005 additional COVID-19 cases on Tuesday in the nine-county area, for a cumulative total of 91,645. There were a cumulative 1,106 deaths reported. The average daily new hospitalization rate was 167 in the nine-county area, an increase from Monday. There was an average of 757 COVID-19 patients who are hospitalized in the nine-county area, according to the resource hub.

The Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard reported a total of 13,715,635 COVID-19 cases in the United States on Tuesday.

Free COVID-19 testing available Wednesday

Free COVID-19 testing will be available from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 2, at Faith Deliverance Family Worship Center, 3043 State Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.

The pop-up test is through Vibrant Health and the Wyandotte County Health Equity Task Force.

The Unified Government Health Department has moved its COVID-19 testing from the 6th and Ann location to the former Kmart at 78th and State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. The hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Tests are free for those who live or work in Wyandotte County. The tests are now saliva COVID-19 tests.

The tests now 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.

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.

Dr. Ault’s news conference is at https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/3478657525588524.

The KU doctors’ morning news conference is online at https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/3648856758470095.

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.

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.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the politics that surround it have triggered an exodus of local public health workers in Kansas.

by Jim McLean, Kansas News Service

Fredonia, Kansas — Nick Baldetti resigned as director of the Reno County Health Department in July.

He left to head an effort to establish a school of health at McPherson College. It was a good opportunity, Baldetti said, but he likely would have stayed to see the department through the pandemic if not for the 80-hour work weeks, the hostile political environment and the threats to his family.

“I had the local police watching my house because my family was home and I was not,” said Baldetti, who also served as the department’s health officer. “There was a period of time that I had escorts to and from work.”

Baldetti, like his counterparts across the state, spent years preparing to deal with a public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. He never imagined that when the moment arrived he would encounter such antagonism for simply doing his job.

“By the end of the day, you just felt like you were on an island by yourself,” he said. “Whatever decision I made, 50% of people were going to be upset because it was too ‘restrictive’ and the other 50% were going to be upset because it wasn’t restrictive enough.”

Baldetti wasn’t alone. The pressure of dealing with the pandemic and the politics surrounding it triggered an exodus of public health workers across the state.

In the nine months since the state’s first documented coronavirus infection, 27 county health officials have left their posts. Some retired but others resigned or were fired.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment says that number includes 15 county health department administrators and 18 health officers. Six of those leaving held both positions.

The same pressures are thinning the ranks of local public health officials across the country. Many are leaving because they’ve been physically threatened or “politically scapegoated” for doing their jobs, Lori Freeman, chief executive of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told National Public Radio.

Vicki Collie-Akers, a professor of public health at the University of Kansas Medical Center, said many of the health officials in Kansas who are leaving are doing so “because they can’t manage both the pandemic crisis and the harassment and denigration that’s come with it.”

The long-term impact of the exodus on the state’s already undermanned and underfunded public health system, Collie-Akers said, will be profound.

Dr. Lee Norman oversees the public health system as secretary of KDHE. Recently assigned a security detail, Norman said the departure of so many frontline workers is “disheartening and cause for concern.”

Frustration, fear and fatigue

Dr. Gianfranco Pezzino recently announced that after 14 years as the health officer of the Shawnee County Health Department he would step down at the end of the year.

“There’s a lot of burnout, anger and frustration,” Pezzino said.

A doctor and public health researcher, Pezzino said months battling county commissioners over how to contain the coronavirus had worn him out.

“I’m tired emotionally, I’m tired physically,” Pezzino said. “I don’t think I have the energy … to do another year like this.”

The amount of misinformation spread on social media — much of it emanating from the White House — politicized the nation’s response to the pandemic, Pezzino said.

“If there had been a unified message coming down from the federal government to the state and local levels,” he said, “it would have been much easier for everybody.”

Mask mandate backlash

Dr. Jennifer Bacani McKenney is also tired and frustrated. Nevertheless, she’s fighting to stay on as Wilson County’s health officer.

McKenney, a doctor, grew up in Fredonia, the county seat. She returned about a decade ago to join her father’s medical practice.

Initially, she said, citizens of the county in the southeast corner of the state embraced orders issued by Gov. Laura Kelly and her department aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus. Those orders sequestered people in their homes, closed schools and some businesses.

“That first probably two months we were everybody’s best friend,” McKenney said. “We were here to take care of you.”

But support for those policies eroded as the number of unemployed Kansans grew to levels not seen since the Great Recession. Republican legislative leaders responded by reining in Kelly’s emergency powers and those of local health officials.

The legislative changes allowed county commissioners to opt out of Kelly’s mask mandate and gave them authority over all local policies aimed at containing the virus.

As the political debate grew more heated — nationally and in Kansas — hostility towards public health officials, like McKenney, increased.

She got threatening emails and was the target of personal attacks on social media.

“It hurts your heart, it really does,” McKenney said. “It’s not only that people are mean, it’s that you’ve lost friends. Relationships are broken.”

During the worst of it, McKenney said, she often sat alone in her office and cried after seeing her last patient of the day.

“There’s nothing else to do,” she said.

Andy Miller, a Wilson County commissioner, said McKenney brought some of the criticism on herself by disparaging President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic in social media posts.

“When you start getting political,” Miller said, “you’ve created a storm.”

When that happens, he said, the attacks run both ways.

“I’ve probably got a dozen emails or so that are just, ‘it’s either a mask (mandate) or you’re a killer,’” he said. “There’s no in between.”

Early last month, commissioners rejected McKenney’s proposal for a mask mandate. But as COVID-19 cases in the county and across the state surged and Kelly called for a statewide policy they agreed to consider a compromise.

They scheduled a rare evening meeting to hear from the public. Most of the 80 people who showed up opposed the mandate as an assault on their personal liberty.

“My fear doesn’t happen to be the COVID virus but the overreach of national and state officials who believe because of their positions or ego that their opinions are fact,” said Charles Fox, a Fredonia veterinarian.

Donovan Hutchinson, the owner of the Dry Creek Saloon in Neodosha, said giving in to a mask mandate would lead to further abuses of government power.

“What will they come after next, our guns, our children?” he said.

Burt Carlson, a 70-year-old retiree from Fredonia, recently spent a week in the hospital for COVID-19 but opposed the mandate.

Despite more than 265,000 U.S. deaths it has caused, Carlson said the coronavirus isn’t as bad as health officials claim.

“It’s no more than a super bad flu,” he said.

When it became apparent that the commission was ready to approve the compromise — a 30-day mandate — several people walked out in protest.

Sheriff’s deputies escorted McKenney to her car after the meeting.

Still, she doesn’t want to add her name to the growing list of local public health officials calling it quits.

“That’s not me,” she said. “I can’t have this knowledge and ability to help people and just walk away.”

Jim McLean is the senior correspondent for the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks or email jim (at) kcur (dot) org.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
See more at https://www.kcur.org/news/2020-11-30/a-pandemic-exhaustion-and-threats-why-dozens-of-kansas-public-health-officials-are-quitting

Doctors reported a jump in COVID-19 hospitalizations and intensive care unit cases on Monday morning at the University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, Kansas.

There were a record 152 total COVID-19 active and recovering patients Monday morning at the hospital, according to Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control.

He said there were 102 active COVID-19 patients on Monday morning, with 46 in the intensive care unit and 30 on ventilators. There were another 50 COVID-19 patients in recovery at the hospital.

For comparison, there were 92 active COVID-19 patients at the hospital last Wednesday, including 46 in the ICU and 21 on ventilators. There were 47 in recovery last Wednesday.

HaysMed in Hays, Kansas, reported 34 total COVID-19 patients, including 20 active and 14 recovering patients, he said.

In the past five to six days there has been a peak in total infections around the Kansas City, area, and they are seeing hospitalizations lag behind the increase in infections, he said.

It is still early to know if there will be a surge following Thanksgiving gatherings, according to Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at KU Health System. He said by Dec. 12 to 14 they should know more about any possible surges in cases from the holiday gatherings.

According to Dr. Stites, it’s possible that there was less testing during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and that case numbers could fluctuate.

The doctors also discussed a recommendation from Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, that people who traveled and attended large gatherings over Thanksgiving should assume they have COVID-19 and get tested soon. She suggested that those who traveled and attended large gatherings should not go near the elderly and those with comorbidities.

Dr. Hawkinson said those who traveled and went to Thanksgiving gatherings could get tested about a week after the gathering, but not before the fifth day.

Dr. Stites said they will be closely watching the number of beds available at the health system, and they still had some ICU beds available on Sunday. He said they will be discussing the availability of beds with other hospitals’ chief officers.

While there were some testing sites closed for the Thanksgiving holiday, the KU Health System’s lab has seen increased testing including 1,500 tests over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend, according to Rachael Liesman, director of the microbiology lab. The lab is averaging over 1,000 tests a day and has doubled testing in the last four weeks, Liesman said.

According to Rick Couldry, vice president of pharmacy health professions, the KU Health System is working with the state of Kansas in its efforts to coordinate testing throughout the state.

The health system has been assigned to a group of five counties in central Kansas, and will focus its efforts on areas that do not have enough testing, he said. They expect to work with long-term care facilities.

KU Health System also has been working closely with Vibrant Health, and has already run about 1,000 tests for Vibrant, which serves Wyandotte County and underinsured residents, he said.

Kansas reports increase of 4,425 cases and 31 deaths since Friday

Kansas reported an increase of 4,425 COVID-19 cases since Friday, for a cumulative total of 157,446. There were 31 additional COVID-19 deaths in Kansas, for a cumulative total of 1,560, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

The Greater Kansas City Region, which includes a nine-county area, reported a seven-day average of 924 additional daily cases on Monday, according to the Mid-America Regional Council’s Kansas City Region COVID-19 Resource Hub. Most of the indicators were trending down.

The rate of new cases is declining slightly, according to the resource hub. The cumulative number of cases in the nine-county area was 90,640.

There were an additional 15 COVID-19 deaths in the nine-county area reported on Monday, for a total of 1,088. The seven-day average of deaths per day was 6.

The daily average of new COVID-19 hospitalizations was 146 in the nine-county area, which is trending down. The weekly average of new COVID-19 hospitalizations in the nine-county area was 873.

The average daily number of COVID-19 patients in the hospital is 644 in the nine-county area. The number of those on ventilators is 101, which was down from the previous day, according to the KC Region COVID-19 data page. There was an average daily number of 174 patients in the intensive care units in the nine-county area.

The Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard reported a total of 13,540,684 COVID-19 cases in the United States on Monday. There were a cumulative 268,016 deaths.

Free COVID-19 testing available Tuesday

Free COVID-19 testing will be available from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 1, at All Saints parish, 811 Vermont, Kasnas City, Kansas.

The pop-up test is through Vibrant Health and the Wyandotte County Health Equity Task Force.

The Unified Government Health Department has moved its COVID-19 testing from the 6th and Ann location to the former Kmart at 78th and State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. The hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Tests are free for those who live or work in Wyandotte County. The tests are now saliva COVID-19 tests.

The tests now 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.

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 KU doctors’ news conference is online at https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/3661066500642141.

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.

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.