Kansas COVID deaths in January topped 1,000. Here’s how it compares to other months

COVID-19 deaths and cases in Kansas both dipped from December to January, according to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s report Friday — the last report of January.

But both deaths and cases still saw high numbers in January, where there were more than 1,000 deaths and 50,000 cases.

Deaths reported by the KDHE in January reached 1,038. December has the most deaths in any month, with 1,181 deaths, which was more than double the 531 deaths reported in November.

The KDHE switched to reporting figures on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in mid-May, so June through January are the most comparable full months for reported figures.

January had a reported 52,252 cases.

A change in the reporting system in October caused an error in the numbers reported by the KDHE. It’s possible that error had a marginal impact on the available number of cases reported from the prior month.

The virus was first detected in Kansas in March 2020, but January had about 27% of all reported deaths and 19% of all cases. Kansas has a total of 3,779 deaths and 274,685 cases.

The month-over-month drop wasn’t only in deaths and cases. The percent of tests coming back positive and the number of people tested also fell.

January saw roughly 123,386 people tested, which is 57,570 fewer tests than December.

The percent of tests that came back positive in January was 8.8%, down from 11.5% in December. April, November and December are the only months to have a double-digit percent of positive tests.

This story was originally published January 31, 2021 at 6:00 AM.