New nursing home COVID cluster in Wichita started with an unvaccinated staff member
An unvaccinated employee of a Wichita nursing home was the first person diagnosed with COVID-19 in a cluster that has infected five residents of the facility.
New clusters of the coronavirus have been reported in Wichita as both Sedgwick County and Kansas as a whole have “substantial” community spread, according to a White House report.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment in its weekly cluster report on Wednesday reported 48 active outbreaks, up from 44 a week ago. The KDHE’s list of active outbreaks identified seven of those 48 locations.
In Wichita, the Mount St. Mary long-term care facility has had six cases in the past two weeks. The Sedgwick County Health Department first identified the cluster at the nursing home, 3700 E. Lincoln St., last week. At that point, it had fewer than five cases of COVID-19.
In a series of statements on Facebook, the Congregation of St. Joseph Mount St. Mary said the first person to test positive was a staff member. The case was caught on April 7 by rapid, routine surveillance testing. The employee later reported feeling sick and had symptoms of COVID-19.
The employee had not been vaccinated.
The residents of the facility, who have all been fully vaccinated, were then tested. Five residents tested positive, but are asymptomatic and in quarantine.
The COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing severe disease, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a small percentage of “vaccine breakthrough cases” are expected, where people who are fully vaccinated get infected after exposure to the virus.
“We have and continue to follow all Health Department and CDC safety protocols in order to protect all who live and work at the center,” the facility said in a statement. “This includes having staff temperatures taken at the start of each shift, and using personal protective equipment including gloves, masks and gowns. Our priority continues to be the health, safety and care of our sisters and residents.”
Last month, KDHE Secretary Dr. Lee Norman said there had been a surprising number of nursing home staff hesitant or refusing to get vaccinated.
“Very curiously and unfortunately, staff at nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities are fairly low uptake,” Norman said.
The American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living said last week that increases in COVID-19 spread “can have a devastating impact on long term care residents and staff.”
“This is not the time to let our guard down,” said organization president Mark Parkinson, a former Kansas governor. “We call on members of the public to respect our elders by doing their part: wear a mask, avoid large groups of people, practice social distancing, and get vaccinated as soon as you are able. We understand that everyone is tired of this pandemic, but it is our most vulnerable who pay the ultimate price by our complacency. We must remain vigilant, and together, we can protect our nation’s seniors and end this nightmare.”
In addition to the Wichita nursing home, the KDHE reported active clusters at Autumn Home Plus in Topeka and Holiday Resort Health & Rehab of Salina.
In Wichita, the KDHE identified a new outbreak at Spirit AeroSystems Building 2-280J, which has had eight cases in the last two weeks. In Hutchinson, The Fathers House religious gathering and Portfolio Recover Associates have clusters. Olathe has an active cluster at Bledsoe Rental.
The other 41 active outbreaks across the state were not identified.
The Sedgwick County Health Department also reported new clusters, but did not identify them. There were one new school-related cluster and three new business clusters reported in the past week.
Pandemic totals, new variant cases
The KDHE on Wednesday reported pandemic totals of 306,883 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases, 9,997 hospitalizations, 2,769 ICU admissions and 4,961 deaths. The increases since Monday were 593 new cases, 36 new hospitalizations, nine new ICU admissions and six new deaths.
Sedgwick County, according to the KDHE, has had totals of 55,659 cases, 1,669 hospitalizations, 526 ICU admissions and 736 deaths. The increases since Monday were 126 new cases, 12 new hospitalizations, three new ICU admissions and zero new deaths.
Five new variant cases were reported, bringing the total to 180. All five were in Shawnee County and were one of the two California variants of concern. Shawnee County now has the most total variant cases with 49.
Sedgwick County has the second-most confirmed variant cases with 47. One case is the Brazil variant while the rest are the UK variant.
Not all COVID-19 cases are tested for variants, which requires genome sequencing. The CDC reports state-level data on the proportion of tests that variants, but Kansas statistics were not available Wednesday.
Nationwide, about 45% of all specimens tested between March 14 and March 27 were the UK variant. That is the most recent data available.
White House COVID report
The White House COVID-19 Task Force report, released Tuesday but dated Friday, shows an 11% increase in the weekly case rate in Kansas. The positive test rate increased 0.5 percentage points while the hospital admission rate dropped 10% and the new death rate dropped 37%.
Both Kansas and Sedgwick County have case rates in the orange zone, positive test rates in the green zone and hospital admission rates in the green zone. Kansas has a death rate in the yellow zone while Sedgwick County’s rate is in the orange zone.
The White House rankings, which include the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, show Kansas has better indicators than most of the country.
Kansas has the sixth-best case rate, the 14th-best test positivity rate, the second-best hospitalization rate and the eighth-best death rate.
The community transmission level was labeled “substantial.” Sedgwick, Reno and Kingman counties also had “substantial” community spread while Harvey, Butler, Cowley and Sumner counties had “moderate” spread.
Vaccination statistics
The KDHE on Wednesday reported more than 1.7 million doses administered out of more than 2.3 million doses distributed to the state. Since Monday, 17,196 first doses were administered and 27,143 more people were fully vaccinated.
About 37% of the population, or 1,078,489 people, have gotten a first dose. About 25.4%, or 740,606 people, have been fully vaccinated.
The Sedgwick County Health Department as of Wednesday reported 196,378 total shots administered and 89,160 people fully vaccinated. Since Monday, 5,515 doses have been administered and 5,135 more people have been fully vaccinated.
Those numbers represent only the doses administered by the health department and do not include other providers in the county, such as pharmacies.
Flu surveillance
Kansas has recorded its first death directly caused by the flu.
This week’s KDHE report on seasonal influenza surveillance showed one death had the flu as the direct cause. Two deaths previously reported had the flu as a contributing cause.
In the 2019-20 flu season, 118 deaths were directly caused by the flu and 23 had the flu as a contributing cause. In the 2018-19 flu season, those numbers were 76 and 21, respectively. The flu season runs from the start of September to the end of May.
Public health officials in the state have said flu cases have dropped drastically this year, but pneumonia deaths have soared. Data shows the surge in pneumonia deaths is likely due to COVID-19 patients who developed the lung infection.
The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics reports that of the 3,512 pneumonia deaths in Kansas since the start of March 2020, about 56% of the patients had COVID-19.
The KDHE has reported 2,512 deaths with pneumonia as a contributing cause this flu season, more than double the 1,024 last flu season and the 973 the previous flu season. Deaths directly caused by pneumonia are 248 so far this flu season, compared to 378 and 370 in the previous two seasons.
This story was originally published April 21, 2021 at 3:20 PM.