The University of Kansas Health System is treating a total of 39 COVID patients today, down from 43 yesterday. Other significant numbers:

• 25 with the active virus today, 27 yesterday
• 3 in ICU, 5 yesterday
• 1 on a ventilator, 1 yesterday
• 14 hospitalized, but out of acute infection phase, 16 yesterday

Key points from today’s guests:

Todd Gregory-Gibbs, HIV patient and AIDS activist

• Has lived with HIV for 30 years now and advances in medicine have greatly improved his quality of life.
• Still has chronic pain and chronic fatigue issues, but he didn't expect to see the year 2000 and it’s 2022 and he’s doing great.
• The social stigma around HIV has lessened and, although it still exists in a lot of ways, people are less ostracized and alienated the way they were before.

Dr. Wissam El Atrouni, infectious diseases, The University of Kansas Health System

• There have been improvements in access to HIV care worldwide over the last decade now.
• 75% of adults with diagnosis of HIV are on medication, and that's 10 times better than just 10 years ago.
• Patients are covered by all kinds of insurance available and even people without insurance are covered by the Ryan White program.
• So there's no reason a person now with HIV in the U.S. or worldwide to not have access to these medications.

Dr. Matt Shoemaker, infectious diseases, The University of Kansas Health System

• As everybody was isolating and quarantining due to COVID, there has been lost access to health care and the number of HIV tests has the significantly declined.
• If somebody feels that they're at risk for HIV, they should talk to their healthcare provider about getting on PrEP and keep testing and keep testing.
• As far as other diseases to be concerned about, there's been a measles outbreak in in New York and in unvaccinated populations.
• We know that even before COVID there was vaccine hesitancy and that seems to continue.
• We worry about the emergence of these childhood diseases that most of us have never seen in our lifetime. So that's a big concern.

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, director of infection control and prevention, The University of Kansas Health System

• The most effective prevention for influenza is vaccination.
• There's a Tamiflu shortage worldwide, so treatment for influenza is going to be impacted by that.
• We strongly encourage everybody to get their influenza vaccinations as well as their COVID boosters.
• Make sure measles, mumps, rubella and other childhood illness vaccines are up to date.

Friday Dec. 2 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Medical Update. Meet a patient who has experienced setback after setback in his quest to find a liver donor. Doctors will explain how his story is directly related to changes in liver allocation.

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