A slight rise in the number of COVID-19 patients at The University of Kansas Health System today. 13 people with the active virus are being treated, up from 11 yesterday. Of those patients, six are in the ICU, up from four yesterday. Three of those patients are on ventilators, the same as yesterday. 12 other patients are still hospitalized because of COVID-19 but are out of the acute infection phase, up from 10 yesterday. That’s a total of 25 patients, up from 21 yesterday. HaysMed has two patients, down from three yesterday. Both are in the recovery phase.
On today’s Morning Media Update, The Journal of the American Medical Association has released research on the impact of COVID-19 on cancer screenings, research done by our chair of Radiation Oncology, Dr. Ronald Chen. Here is the link to the news release by the University of Kansas Medical Center, of which Dr. Chen is a faculty member. The findings are not good and will require a large public health effort to overcome a major deficit in cancer screenings.
Dr. Chen says the pandemic has had an impact on cancer patients, but especially on people who may not yet know they are cancer patients. By that he means there’s been a major decline in the number of routine yet vital yearly screenings for breast, prostate and colon cancer. He says nearly 10 million cancer screenings in the United States failed to happen because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In April of 2020 alone, breast cancer screenings plunged 90 percent. In the coming years, he says these delays will account for tens of thousands of additional cancer deaths. “As a physician, I wasn’t surprised to see that screenings had declined, but this study measures by how much,” Chen said. “This study makes it clear that this is a large public health issue.” He adds that routine cancer screening is important to detect cancers at an early stage when it is most curable. The consequence of millions of people missing cancer screening because of the COVID pandemic is a delay in the detection of cancer, which results in cancer progressing to a more advanced stage. Missing even one year could be the difference between life and death. He pointed out that while his study focused primarily on the United States, this is clearly a worldwide problem. He believes it will take years to catch up on the missed screenings. Chen noted that it’s critical for the public and health care providers to understand how important it is to get cancer screenings back on track. “There needs to be a concerted public health educational campaign across the country to reinforce the importance of cancer screening,” he said. He also thinks hospitals need to proactively reach out to patients to reschedule those canceled screenings. He says one silver lining to the pandemic has been the rapid development of telehealth visits, which was also examined in the study. He says those who had access to telehealth had better screening rates than those who did not. His biggest messages are get vaccinated and get screened ASAP.
David Wild, MD, vice president of Quality and Safety at the University of Kansas Health System, sat in for Dr. Stites. He noted that the 239 new cases of COVID-19 reported yesterday in the Metro area was the highest since February, and we’ve seen a 25 percent increase in the number of new cases in just the last two weeks, which he calls a significant change. He also described efforts to get college students vaccinated before the end of this semester when they leave for home. He says there is proof after proof that establishing herd immunity, described as approximately 80 percent of the population vaccinated, is what will get us out of the pandemic.
Dana Hawkinson, MD, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at The University of Kansas Health System, says the number of new cases in the area are just those that are diagnosed and there are most likely more cases being spread by those without COVID-19 symptoms. He says there’s nothing more important in the world and no bigger gift you can give to yourself and your loved ones than your health. He emphasized the importance of our yearly cancer screenings, and said we especially need to remember to have our children regularly vaccinated against preventable diseases such measles, mumps and cervical cancer.
Friday, April 30 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Media Update. Dr. Kevin Ault, OBGYN and member of the CDC Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, joins us to answer questions about the panel's decision to allow J&J vaccines to resume with a warning. He was one of ten who voted in favor. Four voted against and one member abstained. We will also answer questions we didn't get to during the week.
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