Sedgwick County reports another COVID-19 death, bringing the pandemic total to 33

One more death of a local patient was attributed to the coronavirus disease on Tuesday.

Sedgwick County Health Department reported the new death in its online COVID-19 dashboard, bringing the total to 33. The patient’s date of death and other details were not reported by county officials.

The county reported 61 new coronavirus cases, putting the total since the start of the pandemic at 2,827. Recoveries increased by nine to 1,072. Active cases increased by 51 to 1,722.

The positive test percentage was listed at 11.7% for Monday, the most recent day with data available. The county’s graph shows it as an increase from 11.53% on Sunday. However, the Sunday number was revised down from the original report of 12.17%. The percentages are a rolling 14-day average.

An additional 479 people have been tested, bringing the county’s total to 45,626.

Of the 61 new cases reported by county officials, 10 were in the infant to 19-year-old age group, bringing the group’s total to 384 cases. The 20-39 age group increased by 20 cases to 1,172. The 40-59 age group increased by 20 to 782 cases. The 60-79 age group increased by 10 to 358. The 80 and older group increased by one to 131.

Epidemiologists are still investigating all 61 cases to determine the source of exposure.

One new coronavirus cluster was identified at the Kansas Masonic Home. There have now been clusters at 10 nursing homes, eight businesses, three religious institutions and one state prison. Last week, Sedgwick County attributed 27 of the then 32 deaths to clusters at nursing homes.

There have been a total of 22 clusters, with 14 still active.

As of 11 a.m. Monday, there were 58 patients with COVID-19 in Wesley Healthcare and Ascension Via Christi hospitals. That number was up four from last Monday, which was an increase of about 7%. It represents a single point in time, not total admissions during the week.

The number of COVID-19 patients in the ICU increased by four to 31, or an increase of about 15%.

The approximate number of ICU beds available, which the county had listed at about eight a week ago, was increased to 26. The county reported a total of 208 ICU beds, though 182 of those were in use on Monday.

County Manager Tom Stolz told county commissioners at a staff meeting on Tuesday that the rising positive test percentage indicates the infection is spreading through the community.

“Essentially, 12 people out of every 100 tested today will be positive for COVID. And you can go back and look in early June and see we were averaging between one and two per 100 were testing positive for COVID,” he said. “As that number continues to go up, to me that’s an interpretation that there’s more infection out there and it’s permeating society a little bit more.”

The county’s public health officer, Dr. Garold Minns, said he plans to issue a new health order.

“We were pretty comfortable at the end of May,” Minns said. “We thought that we had done a good job ... getting the numbers under control.

“The last week of May, we had 45 new cases, we had 8.7 new community cases per 100,000 residents and our percent positive cases was 1.9%. We thought that was pretty good and we decided maybe as a result of those numbers being pretty good we could lift most of the restrictions and hope that the community would continue those habits that would keep those numbers down.

“Now move the clock up six weeks, we now have 529 new cases per week this last week, 103 new cases per 100,000 population and a positive case rate of 11%.”

This story was originally published July 21, 2020 at 3:24 PM.