The University of Kansas Health System reports a steady number of COVID-19 patients today. Ten people with the active virus are being treated, the same as yesterday. Of those patients, six are in the ICU, the same as yesterday. Three of those patients are on ventilators, the same as yesterday. Eight other patients are still hospitalized because of COVID-19 but are out of the acute infection phase, down from ten yesterday. That’s a total of 18 patients, down from 20 yesterday. HaysMed reports a total of four COVID-19 patients today, with three active and one in the recovery phase, the same as yesterday.
On today’s Morning Media Update, as we observe National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week, we’ve reached a milestone of 200,000 COVID-19 lab tests at the health system. Dr. Rachael Liesman, director of Microbiology in pathology and laboratory and Marissa Larson, medical lab scientist joined to talk about our COVID testing and more.
Dr. Liesman remembers that this time last year, they were doing about 100 to 150 COVID-19 tests a day, and it felt overwhelming. After adding people and equipment, the lab began running nearly 1,200 tests a day. They have just reached a milestone in performing 200,000 COVID-19 tests since the pandemic began. But that pales in comparison to the total of 4.2 million lab tests they’ve run, which includes all of those expected of a major academic medical center. She says even though the number of daily COVID-19 tests has dropped in half since the peak, the lab continues to run 24/7 to get results back as quickly as possible on all tests. She says now that they have more lab professionals and testing equipment, they will look to perform more tests in-house for things that used to require being sent to other facilities. She also compared the new COVID-19 rapid antigen tests, which are starting to arrive in pharmacies, to the traditional PCR nasal swab test. She says the antigen tests work differently from the PCR tests and are not as sensitive. In her words, “They just don’t detect the virus quite as well.”
Marissa Larson says the last year has been “a whirlwind.” She has been dubbed the “COVID queen” by her colleagues, explaining that it’s all she’s done for the past year. She says while COVID-19 testing has settled down, “It will continue to be one of many things we do, but it no longer will be the driver like it was over the past year.” She described the staff expansion to accommodate the high volume of tests and the types of instruments brought in to handle the new capacity. She says now that COVID-19 tests are slowing down, many staff members are able to focus on adding more testing for other things. She also explained the type of education and background needed to work in the medical laboratory field.
Dana Hawkinson, MD, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at The University of Kansas Health System, thinks the vaccine safety argument continues to be diminished after six months. He also noted a New England Journal of Medicine article that shows the vaccines are safe for pregnant women and their babies. He says it’s OK to get vaccinated and tested the same day. He attributes the drop in COVID-19 testing to both vaccines working and “COVID weariness,” as more people simply choose to live with the symptoms unless the test is required for work. He urged everyone to get vaccinated, saying there are now plenty of shots available, saying vaccinations are going to be our way out of the pandemic.
Steve Stites, MD, chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System, says he’s nervous about any communities considering repealing mask mandates until more people are vaccinated because there’s still widespread community transmission of the virus. He’s also concerned about both small and big cities turning down vaccines because the demand has slowed. He says it’s going to be hard and we’re going to have to go arm to arm to convince people to get vaccinated. He thinks it will come down to personal conversations and will be a slow process. He believes time will help as people get more comfortable with the vaccine’s success. He also says once the FDA gives full approval, and as companies begin requiring it, more people will get vaccinated. But he thinks one of the biggest ways we’ll increase vaccinations is getting them into private medical offices so a patient will hear directly from their doctor, a trusted source, why they are both safe and important.
Friday, April 23 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Media Update. We’ll answer media and community questions we couldn’t get to earlier in the week. And because of all of the questions around kids, COVID, inflammatory syndrome and vaccine, we invited Dr. Barbara Pahud (pa HUDE – rhymes with rude), Research Director of Pediatrics Infectious Diseases at Children's Mercy and Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the KU School of Medicine.
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