Coronavirus update: Kansas has best week in cases and deaths in at least nine months

Kansas saw 1,363 new COVID-19 cases and 11 deaths over the last week, making it the best week in those stats since last summer.

Weekly cases haven’t been that low since mid-June. And the last time Kansas saw fewer deaths than that was during a week at the beginning of July.

For comparison, Kansas saw a weekly high of more than 19,000 cases in November. Weekly deaths surpassed 350 during a week that included the end of December and beginning of January and again in mid-January.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reports figures on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The latest report had 469 new COVID-19 cases, 28 hospitalizations and six deaths, bringing the totals to 304,236 cases, 9,852 hospitalizations and 4,938 deaths.

Testing has dropped each month since peaking with more than 188,000 in November, but so has the percent of tests coming back positive — possibly indicating less spread of the virus.

Vaccine

The number of Kansans who have completed their COVID vaccine process jumped by 40,611 from Wednesday to 579,514, or about 19.9% of the population.

In Kansas, 968,014 people, or about 33.2% of the population, have received at least one dose, according to the KDHE. That’s up from 32% on Wednesday.

Sedgwick County

Sedgwick County cases jumped by 85 to 55,085 since Wednesday, according to the KDHE. That’s about 18.1% of the cases in the state.

Deaths climbed by two to 737, or about 14.9% of all deaths, the KDHE reported.

Sedgwick County has about 17.7% of the Kansas population, according to the KDHE.