The Week in Context, 02Nov2020
Kansas COVID-19 Updates
Hello readers! Here’s the latest on how the situation in Kansas fits into the national context and how the US fits into the global context. Next time, I expect to go over the most recent White House Coronavirus Task Force report and some Kansas-specific data from the state.
The World
Globally, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 disease has sickened > 46.6 million people (+3.5 million since last week) and killed 1,201,400 (+46,500 in the past week) as of this morning.
The US is ranked in the top color category for hot spots, where the dark red represents counties with >14 average daily case rate per 100,000 for the past week. The hottest spots right now are in Europe. We are ranked 30th in the world for weekly case rate over the past 7 days (last week, 33rd). The New York Times coronavirus tracker changed the way they report the data this week - from weekly case rate per 100,000 to average daily case rate per 100,000 over the past week. Using this new method of reporting, the average daily case rate for the US is 25 per 100,000. The top five countries for average daily case rate per 100,000 in the past week are Belgium, Andorra, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, and Slovenia.
The change in the way the NYT coronavirus tracker reports cases is also true for deaths. For deaths, our average daily death rate per 100,000 over the past week is 0.2 and we are ranked #39 in the world for this (#30 last week). The top five countries for average daily death rate per 100,000 in the most recent week are Czech Republic, Belgium, Andorra, Montenegro, and Armenia.
The United States
As hot spots go, they didn’t move that much this week but got more intense. They are mainly concentrated throughout the Midwest. There are increases along the I-25 corridor in Colorado and in Omaha, Nebraska. As of this morning, there have been over 9.2 million cases and 230,937 deaths in the US. Keep in mind that both of these numbers are probably an under-count of the situation in our country.
Cases: Kansas is ranked #13 in the nation for average daily case rate per 100,000 over the past week with a rate of 42. The Kansas case rate is 68% higher than the national average. Of the top 10 states for 7-day case rate per 100,000, six are in the plains states or Midwest.
Kansas has five counties in the top 20 counties in the nation list for average daily cases per 100,000 in the past week. They are Norton (#2, case rate of 634.2), Wallace (#6, 291.7), Ellsworth (#7, 283.3), Sheridan (#9, 272), and Logan (#15, 230.1). Kansas has no cities in the top 20 cities in America for case rate per 100,000.
Testing: In the past two weeks, Kansas has an average daily test rate of 131 tests per 100,000, a decrease of 7.7% compared to last week. This week, Kansas is ranked 50th in the nation for test rate (down from #46 last week). Together with the Harvard Global Health Institute, the New York Times estimates that Kansas is performing at 13% of the ideal testing target. The ideal testing target is based on local disease rates. In that same time, the Kansas percent positive rate has been 27%. Meanwhile, the goal set by the World Health Organization is to be at or below 5% for a sustained period of time. When you have a percent positive rate higher than 5%, it indicates you probably are missing cases with your existing test strategy and need to scale up.
Hospitalizations: The US Department of Health and Human Services indicates that in Kansas, 6.67% of all hospitalized patients are there for COVID-19, either confirmed or suspected. This is an increase compared to the 5.52% reported during the previous week. Kansas is ranked #30 in the nation for this metric. The top three states in the nation for this metric are South Dakota, Montana and North Dakota. These data come from the Health and Human Services dashboard which was last updated 30Oct2020.
Deaths: Kansas has averaged 0.3 deaths each day per 100,000 residents over the past week. The national rate is 0.2. Kansas is ranked #29 in the country for death rate per population.
Influenza: Here’s the latest look at FluView, showing how influenza-like illness compares across states. The map below depicts how states compare when considering the average percent of outpatient (meaning, not warranting a hospital admission) visits for influenza-like illness for the current week compared to non-influenza season weeks.
Compared to last week, ILI activity decreased in Connecticut. However, ILI activity increased in Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and New Hampshire. Kansas remains in the most minimal of the minimal section. Keep in mind that influenza is not a mandatory notifiable disease for public health departments like COVID-19 is. But there is a robust surveillance network for tracking trends. So we aren’t likely to see case counts and death counts like we do for COVID-19 because we are seeing estimates for influenza rather than actual numbers. Both diseases feature a wide spectrum of disease severity that can make it hard to identify all cases. You can read the weekly report from Kansas Department of Public Health here.
Kansas
Here is how the state of Kansas is looking based on the risk tool from the Harvard Global Health Institute. The color coding is explained below the map. In short, green is good, red is bad.
This week, things seem to have gotten worse in the eastern half of the state and far more of the state is colored red. There are just 7 counties that are green or yellow (down from 10 last week). In other words, 90% of the state’s counties are in the red or orange categories.
In total, today there was a net increase of 4046 cases since the Friday report and the new statewide total is 89,227. Last week the weekend total was 2446, so this week we are seeing a big escalation. There was a net increase of 61 hospital admissions and 17 deaths. The updated death total is 1046, for a case fatality rate of 1.2%.
That’s it for today. Make good choices and stay safe!
References
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/coronavirus-maps.html
https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-capacity
https://globalepidemics.org/key-metrics-for-covid-suppression/
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/public-health-criteria-to-adjust-public-health-and-social-measures-in-the-context-of-COVID-19
https://www.coronavirus.kdheks.gov/160/COVID-19-in-Kansas
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My Ph.D. is in Medical Microbiology and Immunology. I've worked at places like Creighton University, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and Mercer University School of Medicine. All thoughts are my professional opinion and should not be considered medical advice.