Sedgwick County has disproportionate share of new COVID cases and deaths in Kansas

Sedgwick County had a disproportionate share of the new COVID-19 cases and related deaths reported in Kansas over the weekend. At the same time, Wichita hospitals are treating fewer COVID-19 patients, though intensive care units remain full.

The Sedgwick County Health Department on Monday reported 207 total patients with the coronavirus disease were currently hospitalized at Ascension Via Christi and Wesley Healthcare facilities. That was a decrease from 216 a week ago.

The ICUs housed 72 of those patients on Monday, which was an increase from 70 last week. There are approximately 208 ICU beds at the hospitals, and they have been at capacity for more than two months.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Monday reported 5,180 new cases, 107 new deaths, 94 new hospitalizations and 26 new intensive care unit admissions since Friday.

Kansas has now had 247,502 confirmed and probable cases, 3,255 deaths, 7,351 hospitalizations and 1,981 ICU admissions.

Sedgwick County residents accounted for a disproportionate amount of the new COVID-19 cases and deaths in the state, but a lower share of the new hospitalizations.

Sedgwick County has about 18% of the Kansas population, but its 1,255 new cases amount to about 24% of the statewide increase. The 23 new deaths in the county were about 21% of the Kansas increase.

The 15 new hospitalizations in Sedgwick County were about 16% of the Kansas increase, while the county’s five new ICU admissions were about 19% of the state increase.

The KDHE reports Sedgwick County’s pandemic totals at 44,604 cases, 463 deaths, 977 hospitalizations and 260 ICU admissions.

With the positive test rate above 10%, Sedgwick County falls in the red zone of the nursing home metric. That means long-term care facilities in the county are required to test their staff at least twice a week.

The two school gating criteria reported by the KDHE on statewide maps show one red indicator and one orange indicator in Sedgwick County.

The county’s rate of 694 new cases per 100,000 people is about 363% higher than the red zone threshold. The positive test rate was 14.64%, which is less than four-tenths of a percentage point away from being in the red zone

The case rate improved from last week, but the positive test rate worsened.

When the Board of Education for Wichita Public Schools meets Monday evening, they will likely use similar measures sourced with Sedgwick County Health Department data. The most recent metrics report from the local health department includes cases and tests through Jan. 2. It also shows the case rate in the red zone and the positive test rate in the orange zone.

A third indicator, the trend in the rate of new cases, would likely be considered stable when using data from either health department. That would be in either the yellow zone or the orange zone.

The state’s school reopening guide, on which USD 259 modeled its own guide, calls for allowing in-person or hybrid schooling for elementary students regardless of the color zone. Secondary students should be online only when in the orange zone or the red zone, and no sports should be allowed. Hybrid learning for secondary students is permitted in the yellow zone, but high-risk sports are not.

The school board is expected to discuss a proposal for returning elementary students to in-person learning and secondary students to hybrid learning.

The board uses the Sedgwick County Health Department’s metrics report, which is released on Tuesdays, as the data source for those statistics. If the board uses the most recent report that is publicly available, it’s data won’t include last week’s cases and tests.

This story was originally published January 11, 2021 at 2:11 PM.