Coronavirus updates: Kansas sees increase of 568 new cases

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported its largest leap in new COVID-19 cases since going to reporting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on May 13.

Friday saw an increase of 568, bringing the total to 13,538. Deaths climbed by three to 264.

The previous high since May 13 was Wednesday when there was an increase of 505 cases. The daily testing during that time, based on adding up negative tests and new positive cases, fluctuates between about 3,500 and around 8,400. Both of the highest days saw more than 6,000 tests.

KDHE spokesperson Kristi Zears said the “best way to measure increases” is the symptom onset date, which showed a high of 421 cases on March 28.

Friday’s new cases represent a more than 4% increase. Along with the case increase, there has been 46 more hospitalizations and 5,586 more negative tests, bringing the respective totals to 1,128 and 154,321.

Additionally, Kansas is trending upward in daily new cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

The KDHE reopen metrics shows two weeks of data that lags about five days behind because the most recent data “is expected to be incomplete.”

Deaths, from June 7-20, show a trend line from under one a day at the beginning to about 2.8 deaths a day at the end. Hospitalizations nearly doubled from June 7-21, with the trend line starting at about five and ending near 10 cases per day. New cases, during the same period as hospitalizations, went from about 4.5 per 100,000 people to 4.8.

Sedgwick County increased 98 cases to 1,072. Health officials have reported 28 deaths in Sedgwick County.

Sedgwick County numbers

Sedgwick County reported an increase of 25 cases from Thursday, bringing the total to 1,026.

Discrepancies between state and local data can be due to delays in reporting between the two public health agencies, officials have said.

Sedgwick County has also been trending up on the percentage of positive cases. The rolling 14-day average last shows 4.2% of cases came back positive on Thursday. Sedgwick County hit a high of 12% on April 19 and a second high of about 11.8% on April 28 before trending downward. Since hitting a high, Sedgwick County dropped to a low of just under 1% on May 26 before trending back up.

Asymptomatic testing suspended in Sedgwick County

The Sedgwick County Health Department will stop taking appointments to test asymptomatic people.

People who called before 5 p.m. Friday will be called back for an appointment next week. The health department said it had roughly 1,000 asymptomatic people who called to have a test done by Friday afternoon.

“The County’s testing priority has always been and continues to be residents with COVID-19. Information will be forthcoming when asymptomatic testing is resumed,” according to a Sedgwick County news release. “Residents who are health care workers (including long-term care facilities), detention workers, Direct Support Professionals, employees of residential group homes, first responders, and law enforcement may continue to be tested regardless of symptoms, on a weekly basis.”

Additionally, other organizations offering testing can be found at sedgwickcounty.org/covid-19/testing-information.

This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 5:00 PM.