Wichita COVID rates are skyrocketing and haven’t hit their peak, health experts warn

Wichita’s City Council received a dire report from medical officials Tuesday, as city leaders attempt to take a more active role in curbing a pandemic that has been regulated primarily by Sedgwick County Commission.

The City Council took no action on the report, but they directed the city manager to look for ways the city can contribute to efforts to improve testing availability, promote the vaccine and make medical experts accessible to members of the public who might be vaccine hesitant.

New COVID cases in the Wichita area have hit their highest numbers since the coronavirus was first discovered in Sedgwick County in March 2020. Hospitals are overwhelmed and understaffed. According to state data, more than 1,000 people in the county have died from the disease.

Last week in the Wichita area, 6,700 people tested positive for COVID-19, Sedgwick County Health Officer Dr. Garold Minns said. That’s up from about 1,600 two weeks earlier.

“This virus has just taken over,” Minns said. “It has massively increased. That’s the highest number of cases we’ve had a week since this whole thing started.”

And it’s likely to get worse, Wichita hospital leaders told the City Council on Tuesday.

“We’re not at the peak yet,” said Dr. Sam Antonios, Ascension Via Christi’s chief clinical officer. “It will accelerate here for the next few weeks.”

The recent surge has multiple causes, Minns said. Some of those causes can’t be controlled, such as the highly contagious omicron variant that hit Kansas in late December. But others can.

Sedgwick County’s vaccination rate has seemingly stalled at 50%, Minns said, which is well below state and national averages.

The vast majority of COVID patients in the hospital are unvaccinated, which is good news for people who have received the vaccine. But it’s bad news for the roughly 250,000 Sedgwick County residents who remain unprotected against the virus.

That’s also concerning to local hospital systems Wesley and Ascension Via Christi, which are already at capacity, driving them to begin administering care in waiting rooms, hospital officials said.

“I would also suggest that part of the reason that the numbers have skyrocketed is in addition to the fact vaccination rate is not as high as we would like, most of the public health recommendations that have been recommended are not being adhered to very often by many people, largely due to COVID fatigue and just wishing this thing would go away.

“But it’s not going away. It’s actually becoming more common, so our community is struggling with this greatly.”

This story was originally published January 11, 2022 at 3:17 PM.