The number of active COVID-19 patients being treated at The University of Kansas Health System is higher today. 82 people with the active virus are hospitalized, up from 76 yesterday. 37 patients are in the ICU, up from 36 yesterday. 24 of those ICU patients are on ventilators today, down from 26 yesterday. 75 other patients are still hospitalized because of COVID-19 but are out of the acute infection phase, up from 74 yesterday. That’s a total of 157 patients, up from 150 yesterday. In addition, HaysMed has a total of 27 COVID-19 inpatients, up from 26 yesterday, with 22 of those active patients and 5 in the recovery phase.
Doctors call the number of patients “stable,” and say they are optimistic that the number of daily new cases in the Metro area continues to trend down with fewer than a thousand a day.
On the Morning Media Update today we welcomed the Kansas Leadership Center to learn about a monumental effort to log 1,000 community meetings by December 31, for a cause they call the Beat the Virus Campaign.
Ed O’Malley is president and CEO of the Kansas Leadership Center, and explained how the Kansas Beats the Virus campaign works. It’s a grassroots program that gathers up to 15 people from local communities together with a coach from the organization and through a virtual video conference they come up with an action plan to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in their communities. One example is a coffee shop that saw local teens gathering inside during the cold weather and set up an outdoor gathering place with fire pits and heaters to give them a safe and socially distanced place to meet. He says the key to success at these meetings is helping people find something they can all be for and get behind and finding the right thing to do in each community. He says there are small grants available for those community projects that need funding. The goal is to have a thousand of these virtual one-hour meetings by the end of the year, and the group is well on its way to meeting that goal. O’Malley says it’s easy to arrange a meeting through the organization’s web site, https://kansasleadershipcenter.org/. He’s happy to see all kinds of Kansans stepping up to slow the spread of the disease.
Claudia Amaro is one of the meeting facilitators and works with a lot of Spanish-speaking communities. She says it’s important to create trust in the Latino communities, especially those who aren’t sure about masks and vaccines. She helps those community leaders who meet with her to look for solutions together, such as virtual church services instead of in-person services. She’s also helped seniors concerned about the safety of their grandchildren visiting.
Dana Hawkinson, MD, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at the health system, reminds us that even after we’ve received the vaccine, we must continue wearing masks. He pointed out that Dr. Anthony Fauci says masks will be necessary until late next year. He says allergic reactions to the vaccine are rare and explained that everyone who receives a shot will be observed for a short time before leaving. He also described the health system’s new “Long-Hauler” clinic under development. It will coordinate care for those recovered COVID-19 patients still suffering symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, aches and shortness of breath.
Steve Stites, MD, chief medical officer at the health system, is excited that a second vaccine, this one from Moderna, appears ready for FDA approval. He says we were concerned about the upward trend of COVID-19 cases before Thanksgiving, but he’s “relatively pleased” that the increase in numbers we saw wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be. He says that’s because people appear to be taking the pandemic seriously and more of us are wearing masks, gathering in smaller numbers, and following all of the pillars of infection prevention. He says, “Hats off. Well done, folks!”
Friday, December 18 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Media Update. December COVID-19 death totals have already surpassed November’s here at The University of Kansas Health System and that worries medical staff. We’ll take a look back at COVID-19 since the pandemic reached the metro and where we’re headed. This is an important message to hear as we head into the New Year. Dr. David Wild and Amanda Gartner join to share this story and answer questions.
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