Kansas had worst county in US for COVID deaths per capita last week — and 2nd, 4th and 5th

Kansas had the worst county in the United States for COVID-19 deaths per capita last week.

It also had the second-worst. And the fourth-worst. And the fifth-worst.

And seven of the top 10 deadliest counties compared to population.

The rankings are from coronavirus pandemic data released Sunday by the White House COVID-19 Task Force. Its death data was for the period of Dec. 13-19.

Edwards County, which topped the list, had eight deaths over the previous seven days, equated to 285.9 deaths per 100,000 people. Sheridan County was second, with seven deaths equating to 277.7 per 100,000.

Calculating rates per 100,000 people is common in public health as it helps compare the level of spread among communities of different sizes.

In an emailed statement, Mitchell Craft, administrator of the Edwards County Health Department, said that “statistics from the White House COVID-19 taskforce and HHS do not accurately represent the time frame in which they are being recorded. We do not know when they are given statistics and how timely they are at recording and publishing them. They could have been sitting on this data for 6 months or they could have just received it and aren’t looking to see the actual date a death may have occurred. Our local data shows that the first death in Edwards County attributed to COVID 19 was in June 2020 and the most recent was in December 2020.”

Logan and Rush counties were also in the top five, while Stanton, Wichita and Ottawa counties made the top 10.

Kansas, which has 105 counties, placed 27 counties in the top 100 deadliest counties in the United States. The database contains 3,220 counties and county-equivalents, including U.S. territories. Approximately two-third of counties in the country reported at least one death in the last week.

The additional Kansas counties in the top 100 were Comanche, Trego, Morris, Ford, Nemaha, Greeley, Cowley, Morton, Wabaunsee, Wallace, Woodson, Pawnee, Allen, Brown, Gray, Stafford, Montgomery, Marshall, Kiowa and Graham.

Sedgwick County ranked No. 1,209. Its 37 deaths equated to 7.2 per 100,000. The number may be under-counted as the database used Sedgwick County Health Department figures, which are substantially lower than what the Kansas Department of Health and Environment reports for Sedgwick County.

Johnson County ranked No. 1,145 with its 46 deaths equating to 7.6 per 100,000.

The White House task force data set first became public on Friday. It is published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, with contribution from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We hope the publication of this data will help Americans make personal choices to slow the spread,” the agencies said in a statement.

The statistics also include the rate of new cases per 100,000 people, also for the period Dec. 13-19. The red zone starts at 101 new cases per 100,000 people.

Ellsworth County was the worst in Kansas and the 22nd-worst in the U.S. Its 89 new cases equated to 1,459 new cases per 100,000 residents. Morris, Labette, Osborne, Chase, Republic and Gray counties also made the top 100, which started at 1,000 new cases per 100,000 people.

That rate means 1% of everyone in the county was diagnosed with COVID-19 in one week.

Sedgwick County ranked No. 1,240 at 464 new cases per 100,000. Johnson County ranked No. 1,128 at 485 new cases per 100,000.

Positive test rate data used the period Dec. 11-17. The red zone starts at a 10.1% test positivity rate.

Seward County was the worst in Kansas and the 10th-worst in the country with a positive test rate of 52.4%. Decatur, Rawlins, Coffey, Washington and Sumner counties were also in the top 100, which started at positive test rate of 31.8%.

Sedgwick County ranked No. 618 at 20.3%. Johnson County ranked No. 1,946 at 11.3%.

This story was originally published December 22, 2020 at 4:10 PM.