Kansas reports 119 more deaths and 185 new hospitalizations from COVID-19

Wednesday marked the deadliest coronavirus update from state public health officials.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reported 119 new deaths attributed to COVID-19 on Wednesday, along with 185 new hospitalizations and 4,615 new cases of the coronavirus disease. The increase is over two days.

Kansas reported the same number of deaths over the last two days as were reported in the last week. There were 119 new deaths over the entire week of Nov. 20-27.

The 119 new deaths was the highest for any Monday-Wednesday-Friday report from the KDHE.

All of the patients who died were 35 years old or older. About 69% of them were 75 or older.

The Sedgwick County Health Department did not report any new local deaths on Tuesday, but the Wednesday update had 22 new deaths. County officials attributed the increase to new data from the KDHE, which included deaths between April and November. There have now been 172 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the county.

There have now been 162,061 cases in Kansas with 5,290 hospitalizations and 1,679 deaths. Sedgwick County has had a total of 28,617 cases, which is the most of any county in the state.

In addition to the 185 new hospitalizations statewide, there were 37 new ICU admissions and 14 more patients placed on ventilators.

Sedgwick County had 651 new cases over the past two days, as well as nine more hospitalizations and two new ICU admissions, according to the KDHE.

So far in December, the state has recorded a 17.1% positive test rate.

Weekly cluster update

The KDHE issues a weekly cluster update on Wednesdays. There are 493 active coronavirus clusters in Kansas, which is down from 517 last week.

The state reported 51 new clusters, raising the total since the pandemic started to 1,373. The new outbreaks were at 21 nursing homes, 11 schools, five businesses, four group homes, three government offices, three medical facilities, two private events, one correctional facility and one religious gathering.

There were 79 deaths in the last week attributed to clusters. One death came from an outbreak at a private business, one death came from a cluster at a religious gathering and the other 77 deaths happened at long-term care facilities.

The largest category of active clusters is long-term care facilities, of which there are 213. The second largest group is schools, which have 68 active clusters across the state. The 57 ongoing outbreaks at private business is the third-most of any category.

The KDHE also issues a list that identifies locations of active clusters with at least five cases in the last 14 days. Most of the 493 active clusters are not named on the list.

In Sedgwick County, Derby High School was the only active school cluster listed, with 11 cases in the last 14 days. The list dropped Derby Middle School, Derby Cooper Elementary School, Maize High School, Maize South High School and the Haysville district’s Campus High School, which were all on last week’s list.

The Sedgwick County Health Department has reported a total of 17 school-related clusters in the county, but only seven have been identified by the KDHE. The seventh cluster was Maize Elementary School, which was previously removed from the list.

There were two long-term care facilities from Wichita on the list. Medicalodges of Wichita had 21 cases and Regent Park Rehabilitation and Healthcare in Wichita had six cases.

In Reno County, Hutchinson Correctional Facility had 10 cases. The Diversicare of Hutchinson long-term care facility had 12 cases, the Good Samaritan Society-Hutchinson Village had five cases, Wesley Towers in Hutchinson had five cases, Mennonite Friendship Communities in South Hutchinson had 12 cases and Buhler’s Sunshine Meadows Retirement Community had 19 cases.

In Butler County, El Dorado Correctional Facility had 60 cases.

In Cowley County, the Capper Foundation group living facility in Winfield had 17 cases. There were 22 cases at the Arkansas City Presbyterian Manor long-term care facility.

In Kingman County, The Wheatlands Health Care Center long-term care facility in Kingman had 33 cases.

There could be more local, active outbreaks than were identified on the list because the majority of clusters in Kansas were not named.

The Sedgwick County Health Department on Wednesday reported one new business cluster and one new school-related cluster. Neither were publicly identified.

Former Kansas Supreme Court justice dies from COVID

Former Kansas Supreme Court Justice Tyler Lockett died Saturday from COVID-19.

The Kansas Judicial Branch announced his death on Wednesday. Lockett, 87, was appointed in 1983 by Gov. John Carlin to the Supreme Court. He had previously been a Sedgwick County District Court judge and an attorney in private practice.

Lockett retired from the Supreme Court in 2003.

“Justice Lockett’s many years in the U.S. military and an almost equal number of years in the Kansas judiciary show just how devoted he was to serving others,” former Chief Justice Lawton Nuss said in a statement. “He was a good man and a good colleague, and he helped teach me what it takes to be both.”

This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 1:15 PM.