COVID variant cases continue to rise in Kansas, led by UK strain in Sedgwick County
A wave of COVID-19 cases from coronavirus variants in Kansas has been led by a surge of the UK strain statewide and especially in Sedgwick County.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Monday reported 701 confirmed variant cases in 45 counties. The state’s total is up 6.5% from 658 variant cases in 43 counties on Friday, and up 57.5% from 445 variant cases in 36 counties one week ago.
Sedgwick County is the second-most populous county in the state and has 285 variant cases. That’s more variant cases than the rest of the 13 most populous counties combined. Sedgwick County’s total is up 46% in one week.
“At least half of the infections in Kansas now are no longer the wild type, they are a variant,” said Dr. Steve Stites, the chief medical officer at The University of Kansas Health System, during a Friday media briefing.
Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control at KU, said the UK variant accounts for about 65-70% of all recent samples tested in Kansas. Hawkinson said the UK variant accounts for about 70% of recent samples in Sedgwick County.
Since the start of the pandemic, Kansas has had 310,927 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases, 10,405 hospitalizations, 2,882 ICU admissions and 5,016 deaths, according to the KDHE. There were 345 new cases, 31 new hospitalizations, eight new ICU admissions and zero new deaths over the weekend.
Sedgwick County, according to the KDHE, has had 56,588 cases, 1,765 hospitalizations, 558 ICU admissions and 753 deaths. The weekend increases were 113 new cases, 13 new hospitalizations, two new ICU admissions and no new deaths.
Of the 13 new local hospitalizations, about 8% were in the 25-34 age group, about 23% were in the 35-44 age group, about 23% were in the 45-54 age group and about 46% were in the 55-64 age group.
As of Monday, more than 2 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered out of nearly 2.7 million doses distributed to the state, according to the KDHE. There were 9,068 people who got a first dose over the weekend and 21,700 more people got fully vaccinated.
The 1,149,916 first doses administered means 39.5% of Kansans now are at least partially vaccinated. There are 938,554 fully vaccinated Kansans, or 32.2% of the population.
Sedgwick County has 36.4% of the population vaccinated with at least one dose, up from 36.0% on Friday. The fully vaccinated rate is 28.5% of the population, up from 27.7%.
Coronavirus variants in Kansas
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified five strains as variants of concern and eight strains as variants of interest.
The CDC reports that evidence shows the variants of concern are more transmissible, which can lead to rapid rises in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths. They may also cause more severe disease, weaken the effectiveness of treatments and reduce the protection of antibodies from previous infection or vaccination. Variants of interest have specific genetic mutations that are predicted to affect transmission, diagnostics, therapeutics or immunity. They may also have an increased proportion of cases or unique outbreak clusters.
All five variants of concern have been found in Kansas. The five strains include one each from the United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa, as well as two strains from California.
The UK variant is the most prevalent in Kansas with 516 confirmed cases. The state has had 95 cases of the Brazil variant, five of the South Africa variant, and 47 combined cases from the two California variants.
Six of the CDC’s eight variants of interest have been found in Kansas. Those six strains include two strains from New York, two strains from India, a second UK variant that is also tied to Nigeria and a second Brazilian variant. Two additional variants of interest from India have not been found in Kansas.
Kansas has had 38 total cases from the variants of interest.
Of the variants of concern, Sedgwick County has 193 cases of the UK variant, 78 cases of the Brazil variant, one case of the South Africa variant and one case of each of the two California variants. Of the variants of interest, Sedgwick County has one UK/Nigeria variant case, nine combined cases from the two New York variants and one case of an India variant.
All of the counties in the surrounding Wichita area have had confirmed variant cases.
Reno County has seven cases of the UK variant. Harvey County has seven cases of the UK variant and one case of a variant of interest. Butler County has seven cases of the UK variant, three cases of one of the California variants and one case of the Brazil variant. Cowley County has three cases of the UK variant, three cases of the Brazil variant, one case of a California variant and five cases from variants of interests. Sumner and Kingman counties each have one case of the UK variant.
It is unclear how prevalent the variants are in the Wichita area and statewide. The total number of variant cases is likely higher, as only a small number of samples undergo the genome sequencing required to determine the virus strain.
The CDC reports variant proportions by state, but data is unavailable for Kansas and any state that reports fewer than 300 tests from samples in a two-week period. In the four-state region of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa, for the period that ended April 10, 66% of all sequenced specimens were the UK variant. No other strain accounted for more than 8% of cases.
More recent CDC data is not available.
This story was originally published May 10, 2021 at 5:43 PM.