Coronavirus isn’t ‘magically’ gone, Kansas health leader says as emergency nears end
The top public health official in Kansas says the coronavirus is not “magically” gone as the health department prepares for an end to the statewide emergency declaration.
“The trend line is doing really quite well, but we have to remember we have still about 100 — or slightly more — new cases every day,” said Dr. Lee Norman, the secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. “We still have one to three deaths every day.
“Put that in perspective. The deaths are preventable. If we had one to three deaths a day from something else that was preventable, there would be rioting in the streets. So the fact is the numbers have come down quite dramatically, but we still have a ways to go.”
Norman’s comments came during a Tuesday media briefing hosted by The University of Kansas Health System.
As of Wednesday, the KDHE has recorded 315,500 cases of COVID-19, 10,849 hospitalizations and 5,103 deaths since the start of the pandemic. In Sedgwick County, there have been 57,512 cases, 1,867 hospitalizations and 775 deaths.
About 47.5% of the entire state population has been vaccinated with at least one dose, while about 39.3% of people are fully vaccinated, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Norman said the health department is preparing a plan to transition out of emergency operations, and it will be presented to the governor.
“Our Legislature has decided to allow our state emergency declaration to expire on the 15th” of June, Norman said. “So that means we will be gradually standing down our emergency operations center. I do not want people to come away with the idea that means that because the emergency declaration for the state of Kansas is going away that somehow magically the virus is going away. We still have the same battle, we still have the same need for vaccinations.”
The emergency operations is more behind-the-scenes, such as finding warehouses and truck drivers, Norman said. FedEx and UPS will do more of the vaccine delivery. Ending the statewide emergency will also take away the National Guard troops who have assisted in the pandemic response, though the plan is to use contract nurses to fill that gap.
Contact tracing and case investigations will continue. Local officials will still have the authority to issue mask mandates and other health orders. Federal money used for vaccinating and testing is not tied to the emergency declaration, Norman said.
“We’re on the up and up,” he said. “I think we’re doing pretty well, but we still have a lot of things to be cautious about.”
COVID data update
Data from the White House task force and CDC as of Tuesday showed “moderate” community spread in Kansas as a whole. However, certain areas are nearing hot-spot designation.
In the seven-day period of June 1 through Monday, the CDC reported 787 new cases and 27 new deaths in Kansas. There were 100 confirmed COVID-19 hospitalization admissions and 180 suspected COVID-19 hospital admissions. The positive test rate was 3.8%
By federal standards, the hospital rates and positivity rate were in the green zone while cases and deaths were in the yellow zone.
Kansas has five of the 100 worst counties nationwide for the rate of new cases, CDC data show. Decatur County has the 19th-highest weekly case rate in the country and is more than triple the red zone threshold. Rawlins County is 23rd, Washington County is 30th, Cloud County is 60th and Geary County is 62nd.
In total, 15 of the 105 counties in Kansas have “high” community transmission, the highest level of disease spread possible in the CDC’s county-level COVID reports. Other counties in the red zone for community spread, according to CDC data reported Wednesday, are Allen, Cherokee, Dickinson, Doniphan, Ellsworth, Linn, Marshall, Morris, Pottawatomie and Wabaunsee.
The Wichita and suburban Kansas City areas generally have “moderate,” or yellow zone, community spread.
Sedgwick County had 185 new cases in the weekly period that ended Monday, a rate of 36 per 100,000. There were eight new deaths. The positive test rate was 4.3%. There were 19 confirmed and 115 suspected COVID-19 hospital admissions. The ICU status is in the red zone, with 87% of staffed, adult beds occupied, though only 4% of beds are occupied by confirmed COVID-19 patients.
The Sedgwick County Health Department reported that, as of Monday, 27 patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 at Ascension Via Christi and Wesley Healthcare facilities. Eleven of those patients were in ICUs. Local hospital numbers have mostly improved since the spring peak in early May.
The vaccination rates in Sedgwick County lag behind the statewide numbers. Locally, 41.4% of people have gotten a first shot and 32% of people are fully vaccinated, the CDC reports.
COVID vaccines
Achieving a high vaccination rate continues to be elusive in Kansas, which ranks 30th of the U.S. states for fully vaccinated population.
Norman said Kansas will not reach a 70% first-dose vaccination rate by July 4, a goal set by President Joe Biden, adding that herd immunity is likely several months away.
“We need to accelerate the pace,” he said.
The opposite is happening. The past week was the worst for vaccine administration in Kansas since at least late January, according to CDC data archives.
In the last week, there were 12,979 first doses and 13,927 second doses administered statewide, according to the Monday CDC report. Kansas peaked at 133,964 first doses administered the week prior to April 5 and 112,880 second doses the week before April 19. Last week’s numbers were a 90% drop in first doses and 88% drop in second doses since the height of the vaccine rollout.
“Vaccinations have dropped off dramatically,” Norman said.
In Sedgwick County, the local health department will be shutting down its drive-thru vaccination clinic on June 24 due to decreased demand, according to a Wednesday announcement. The clinic had primarily served elderly residents, and most of that population has already gotten both shots.
The mass vaccination site at the old library in downtown Wichita and smaller mobile clinics will continue to operate.
While mass clinics have seen a significant drop in demand, school-based clinics have picked up some of the slack, the health secretary said. Children ages 12 and older are eligible for the Pfizer vaccine.
“There’s even kids that are dragging their parents in that haven’t been vaccinated to show them the right thing to do, and then they get vaccinated too,” Norman said.
Norman said more than 90% of Kansans who get a first dose are getting their second dose. Dr. Steve Stites, the KU hospital chief medical officer, said Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are both “pretty effective” after the first shot, but “you want to get that second dose” because it makes the immunity stronger and last longer.
Vaccine hesitancy and denial continues to be “an uphill battle,” said Dr. Dana Hawkinson, the KU medical director of infection prevention and control.
“I had a patient even on Friday that didn’t want it because that patient didn’t believe coronavirus was real, thought it was a government hoax,” Hawkinson said.
But getting vaccinated doesn’t just protect you. Studies support that vaccinations help prevent transmission to other people, he said.
“It continues to be an act of charity to help people around you” by getting vaccinated, Hawkinson said. “You may feel you may not get sick ... but you have to understand too that you do pose a risk to other people.”
Some of the vaccine hesitant claim the vaccine is “experimental.” Stites said that is not true, noting that mRNA vaccines have been around for more than a decade.
“With hundreds of millions of doses given out, it is one of the most tested and one of the most experienced products in modern history,” Norman said. “The fact that it doesn’t have full FDA approval — and they will — doesn’t necessarily mean it’s experimental. I think that conjures up something that maybe is not intended, but I do think that is used occasionally to dissuade people.”
Coronavirus clusters, variants
Coronavirus clusters continue to pop up across the state. In the past two weeks, there were 33 new outbreaks reported by the KDHE. Locations include 17 businesses, five long-term care facilities, three private events, three sports, one school, one health care facility, one group home, one government office and one correctional facility.
Norman said staff at nursing facilities should be vaccinated, noting that “a lot” of outbreaks at care homes started with an unvaccinated employee who then infected the residents.
“The good news is most residents, over 90% of them, are vaccinated,” he said. “A lot of the infections we have picked up in those folks are completely asymptomatic.”
“I think it’s a moral obligation when working in those kind of settings to be vaccinated.”
Statewide, there have been 1,364 confirmed variant cases as of Wednesday, though genome sequencing is performed on only a fraction of COVID-19 cases. The Alpha variant, first identified in the United Kingdom, continues to be the predominant strain in Kansas with 971 cases.
Sedgwick County has had 620 of the state’s confirmed variant cases. The most dominant strains locally are 398 cases of the Alpha variant and 176 cases of the Gamma variant, which was first identified in Brazil.
Wastewater testing shows the Delta variant’s proportion in Kansas has been rising, Norman said. The Delta strain, which was first identified in India, is partially behind a surge that recently pushed two rural Missouri counties to be the worst in the country.
“We’re watching it carefully,” Norman said of the Delta strain.
Norman, who has lauded the benefits of wastewater testing to identify COVID-19 prevalence in a community, said public health officials have started a similar pilot project to sample air.
“Imagine coming back in the fall with certain classrooms,” he said. “It’s like saliva testing, but you don’t have to touch anybody. It’s basically (testing for) presence or absence of (virus particles in the air). It’s PCR testing, so it’s very specific. Whether it will fit in or not in work settings or in the classroom — I think it will — we’ll find out.”
Still, the KDHE will likely continue recommending that school boards require masks in classrooms next school year.
“Our guidance will remain that unvaccinated persons should wear masks,” Norman said. “So we will still have the same recommendations for distancing and mask wearing, until which time we can vaccinate children. There will be a lot of pressure, and I think we will end up with an odd patchwork quilt throughout the state of Kansas.”