A new record number of COVID-19 patients are being treated at The University of Kansas Health System today. 102 people with the active virus are hospitalized, up from 91 last Wednesday. 46 patients are in the ICU, down from 47 Wednesday. 30 of those ICU patients are on ventilators today, up from 21 Wednesday. 50 other patients are still hospitalized because of COVID-19 but are out of the acute infection phase, up from 46 Wednesday. That’s a total of 152 patients, up from 137 Wednesday. In addition, HaysMed has a total of 35 COVID-19 inpatients with 21 of those active patients and 4 in the recovery phase, down from 37 Wednesday. Doctors say it’s too early to see any infections from Thanksgiving, but we’ll know by December 10-14 if there’s a big spike in cases or not.
On the Morning Media Update today, we answered questions about testing including the toll this virus is taking on a small, but mighty team of lab workers. Rachael Liesman, the director of our microbiology lab and Rick Couldry, VP of Pharmacy Health Professions are the guests.
Rachael Liesman says the lab has seen the demand for testing double in the last four weeks, and they are now averaging well over 1000 a day, doing 1500 over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend. She says the small staff is coping well with the surge and they are keeping safe by wearing the right personal protective equipment and social distancing as best they can. She says the rapid antigen test is good at confirming the virus in patients with symptoms, but not as good with asymptomatic patients. She also discussed the effectiveness of saliva testing but says the PCR (nasal swab) test still remains the gold standard of testing.
Rick Couldry says sometimes keeping the lab supplied is a week- to- week battle. He explained some of the COVID-19 vaccinations will require freezers that reach 80 below zero and said with the purchase of one more, the health system will have enough freezers to store the vaccine. He also described how the health system is working with the State of Kansas to provide testing to some long-term care facilities and some counties that don’t have good access to testing.
Dana Hawkinson, MD, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at The University of Kansas Health System, agreed with Dr. Debora Birx of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, who said those who traveled over Thanksgiving should consider themselves exposed and should be tested this week. He says if you traveled by car and observed all proper infection control measures you should be in better shape than those who used other means of travel. He says it’s good that Moderna has applied to the FDA for authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine, which has shown to be 94% effective. He pointed out that we will need at least four vaccine producers to have enough for everyone. He also explained the reasons behind the recommendation of a 10-14-day quarantine for those who might be infected and described what we know about whether having COVID-19 gives you immunity for up to 90 days. He says testing, mask wearing, social distancing and vaccines are the ways we will get out of this together.
Steve Stites, MD, chief medical officer at The University of Kansas Health system, thinks the first round of vaccines may be ready to administer by December 15. He says while the virus itself may have mutated slightly since the beginning of the pandemic, the spike protein, which is what the vaccine is targeting, has not changed, nor has there been a change in the way the virus infects people. He says overall bed capacity at the health system remains good, though ICU beds are at a premium. He says capacity remains a real concern, especially at this time of year which would be very busy in a normal year. He gave a shout-out to the hospital’s kitchen staff which fed everyone a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and Friday. He reminded us, as he has so often, that the rules of infection prevention follow us wherever we go.
Tuesday, December 1 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Media Update. Bob Moser, Dean, School of Medicine Salina and David Wild, VP of Performance Improvement will update the virus spread, impact on communities and learning, plus mitigation efforts to make room for patients we need to share that begin here at the health system tomorrow.
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.
