Here’s how many Kansas schools, sports and colleges had COVID clusters in September

Sixty-eight.

That’s how many outbreaks of COVID-19 cases Kansas health officials discovered in education and athletics last month.

Seven hundred ninety-eight.

That’s how many cases of the coronavirus disease were directly connected to a Kansas school, sport or college cluster in September.

With several Kansas schools and sports teams waiting until September to start activities, the past month saw several new coronavirus outbreaks in education, as well as additional cases from existing clusters. The clusters contributed to a statewide rise in COVID-19 cases.

Clusters are generally defined as two or more cases of COVID-19 with a common time and place.

Kansas Department of Health and Environment records from Aug. 31 and Sept. 30 show 188 new clusters were reported over the past month, with 68 of those in education and athletics settings.

Colleges and universities went from 19 outbreaks at the end of August to 36 at the end of September. There were 17 new clusters during that time. The total number of cases connected to college and university outbreaks went up by 539, and there was one hospitalization.

Some K-12 schools in Kansas reopened in August, and five had become sources of coronavirus outbreaks by the end of the month. September added 22 more schools to the list. The month also saw 159 more cases and two more hospitalizations connected to the clusters.

Sports clusters — which public records have shown to include high school and college sports teams — went from 14 total clusters to 24 total clusters in the month. The increase of 10 outbreaks in athletics was accompanied by 100 new cases and one hospitalization.

None of the cases directly linked to a cluster in education or athletics have resulted in a death, according to KDHE records.

The deadliest outbreaks have been at nursing homes and other care facilities. Since the pandemic first hit Kansas, exactly half of the deaths, or 339 out of 678, were connected to long-term care facilities.

In the past month, the death count at long-term care facilities increased by 110. However, it is unclear how many of the deaths that were reported in September actually happened in September.

The KDHE reported 76 new clusters at long-term care facilities last month, as well as 1,010 more cases and 85 more hospitalizations.

Overall, Kansas ended September with 707 total clusters, meaning 188 new ones were added in the past month. The number of associated cases rose by 3,484 as there were 111 more hospitalizations and 111 new deaths.

The state ended the month with 41 more active clusters than what it had at the start of the month.

The cluster increases accounted for about 20.3% of the 17,137 new cases of COVID-19 last month, as well as about 18.1% of the 613 new hospitalizations and about 47.8% of the 232 new deaths.

The state health department also tracks two key COVID-19 indicators by county that are used in the state education department’s school reopening guide. The data is only reported weekly, so comparing months is imperfect.

The following comparisons of counties in the Wichita area use data for the two-week periods that ended Aug. 28 and Sept. 26.

The KDHE measures both the county incidence rate, which is a measure of new cases over two weeks compared to 100,000 population, and the positive test rate, which is the percentage of tests that come back positive.

Every county in the Wichita area ended the last full week of September in the red zone of the county incidence rate, except for Harvey County, which was in the yellow zone.

The color-coded gating criteria from the Kansas State Department of Education uses green, yellow, orange and red zones as a school reopening guide. Green is the most lenient and red is the most restrictive, calling for all classes moving online and no sports.

The incidence rate thresholds are set at 50, 100, and 150 new cases per 100,000 people. The positive test rate has thresholds set at 5%, 10% and 15%.

Butler County had its two-week incidence rate go from 166 new cases to 190 new cases. The positive test rate went from 7.6% to 5.0%.

Cowley County had its two-week incidence rate go from 163 new cases to 224 new cases. The positive test rate went from 6.9% to 2.9%.

Harvey County had its two-week incidence rate go from 99 new cases to 70 new cases. The positive test rate went from 6.8% to 2.8%.

Kingman County had its two-week incidence rate go from 182 new cases to 308 new cases. The positive test rate went from 7.0% to 7.7%.

Reno County had its two-week incidence rate go from 461 new cases to 311 new cases. The positive test rate went from 12.1% to 6.7%.

Sedgwick County had its two-week incidence rate go from 208 new cases to 158 new cases. The positive test rate went from 10.9% to 5.7%.

Sumner County had its two-week incidence rate go from 101 new cases to 171 new cases. The positive test rate went from 6.4% to 6.5%.

This story was originally published October 1, 2020 at 3:51 PM.