Another big jump and a new record number of COVID-19 patients being treated at The University of Kansas Health System today. 80 patients are hospitalized, up from 67 on Friday. 31 patients are in the ICU, up from 22 Friday. 11 patients are on ventilators, up from 7 Friday. 45 other patients are still hospitalized because of COVID-19 but are out of the acute infection phase, up from 28 Friday. That’s a total of 125 patients. In addition, HaysMed has 27 total COVID-19 inpatients, same as Friday, with 3 of those patients in the recovery phase.
Doctors noted with alarm that one third of all the COVID-19 patients admitted to the health system since March have come in the last six weeks.
On the Morning Media Update today was Garold Minns, MD, Dean of the KU School of Medicine in Wichita, to share what COVID-19 is like in that city. We know that Wichita is a few days or a week ahead of Kansas City, and both are influenced by what is going on throughout Kansas. Also joining was David Wild, MD, vice president of Performance Improvement at The University of Kansas Health System, with sobering new numbers on the pandemic.
Dr. Wild compared different regions of the country and showed that the Midwest is far ahead of the others in COVID-19 cases. Missouri and Kansas have been trending much higher, but still trail North Dakota. Despite how bad things are now, he expects it will be much worse in the next two weeks, since the number of hospitalizations rises after the number of new cases. He says it’s scary that all the things we worried about in March and April have come true. He stresses the importance of convincing the community how serious this is. He emphasized that this is nothing like the flu as there are never this many critically ill patients even in the worst flu season. He points out there is no public health order that will address every situation, but each member of the community must take personal responsibility for stopping the spread of the virus. He worries that if the current patterns of hospitalizations continue, there may be no choice but to shut down the economy again.
Dr. Minns is seeing the same conditions in Wichita with cases way up and has never seen anything on this scale in his long career. He believes there has been “mediocre compliance” in mask wearing with many people not taking the pandemic seriously. He says hospitals in Wichita have stopped taking referrals and are looking at rescheduling some surgeries, just like in Kansas City. He put it bluntly by saying this is getting to a crisis level and with cases doubling every two weeks, everyone needs to take personal responsibility to stop the spread of the virus. He says the solution is convincing people to band together for the good of the community.
Dana Hawkinson, MD, medical director of infection prevention and control at The University of Kansas Health System, says it’s being shown that individual gatherings in homes with friends or family in different bubbles is one of the main ways the virus is spreading. He feels that until there is better compliance, things are going to get worse. He also discussed the upcoming vaccines and how they will be distributed. He thinks it won’t matter which vaccine you get as all will be proven safe and effective. He also noted that monoclonal antibodies are starting to be used for outpatients to lessen the symptoms of COVID-19 and keep people out of the hospital.
Steve Stites, MD, chief medical officer at The University of Kansas Health System, says imagine this is a football game, it’s first and goal from the one-yard line, and we’re going to win the game…just don’t fumble! That’s how he sees the upcoming vaccines combined with mask wearing and following all of the pillars of infection prevention now more than ever. He says pulling together is how mankind has always handled pandemics and we’re a nation that comes together for a common belief. This, his says, is a character issue.
Tuesday, November 17 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Media Update. KDHE Secretary Dr. Lee Norman joins us along with KDHE Director of Bureau of Disease and Prevention Phil Griffin. We will talk more about efforts to slow the infection spread as well as update distribution plans for a vaccine.
ATTENTION: media procedure for calling in:
The meeting is available by Zoom, both video and by phone. To join the Zoom Meeting by video, click https://kumc-ois.zoom.us/j/7828978628
Telephone dial-in Participants:
For those without Zoom, call 1-253-215-8782, meeting ID: 782 897 8628.
The feed is also available via TVU grid. The TVU source is UoK_Health and is being made available to all.
Feel free to send questions in advance to medicalnewsnetwork@kumc.edu.
