The number of COVID-19 patients with the active virus at The University of Kansas Health System has dropped today. Seven are being treated, down from 11 yesterday. Of those patients, two are in the ICU, the same as yesterday. Both of those patients are on ventilators, the same as yesterday. 13 other patients are still hospitalized because of COVID-19 but are out of the acute infection phase, up from seven yesterday. That’s a total of 20 patients, up from 18 yesterday. Five of the active patients were symptomatic while the other two were diagnosed with COVID-19 during a routine admission screening. HaysMed has one active and one recovering patient, after reporting two active patients and one recovering yesterday.
On today’s Morning Media Update, remember COVID toes? Add hair loss, skin rashes and undiagnosed skin cancers to the list of conditions Dr. Anand Rajpara says he's seeing in his patients. He’s medical director of dermatology here at the health system and KC Care Director of the Free Dermatology clinic.
Dr. Rajpara reports many patients in the COVID-19 long haul clinic have skin problems, and among the most common are the so-called “COVID-toes.” The technical name is pernio, and it’s been around long before the pandemic, but the COVID-19 virus seems to have made it much more common. He says it used to always show up in the winter, when the cold weather decreases circulation to people’s extremities, and never in the spring. But since the pandemic began it happens a lot, in all seasons. The symptom is a rash caused by tiny blood clots in the toes which cause painful purple spots. There is no long-term problem, just discomfort and pain in the toes, sometimes severe enough to keeping patients from walking. The good news is it can be treated with calcium channel blockers to help improve blood flow. He also says a lot of patients have reported hair loss, which can be both due to COVID-19 itself and the severe emotional stress of pandemic related issues such as loss of a loved one. He explained when we have severe emotional stress or physical illness, our system is shocked, and the body goes into conservation mode to save energy and stops non-essential functions. One of those is hair growth. He said it’s completely reversible but could take six to 12 months for the hair to fully regrow. He pointed out the vaccine doesn’t cause hair loss or nail problems, stress does. He says it’s normal for some patients to get a slight temporary rash around the vaccine injection site, but also outlined five common rashes you can get from COVID-19 itself. He said the best way to prevent any of these symptoms is to get vaccinated.
Dana Hawkinson, MD, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at The University of Kansas Health System, discussed a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine showing a greater than ten times reduction of vaccinated nursing home patients getting COVID-19, a population which had been seeing the majority of deaths. He also noted some good news about the Pfizer vaccine, which needed to be kept frozen at a super-cold temperature. It’s now been approved to be kept refrigerated for a month after being thawed, which will help a lot of pharmacies, clinics and mobile distribution units. He said for those who lost their sense of taste and smell, it could take six to 12 months to return. For exercise, he advises a half marathon is safe because it’s outdoors, but working out in a gym is still questionable since you don’t really know who else has been vaccinated. For those who ask who we’re seeing in the hospital for the virus, he says the question needs to be who are we not seeing, which is 70 and 80 year old patients, who used to be the majority of those with COVID-19.
Steve Stites, MD, chief medical officer at The University of Kansas Health System, says we need to be careful not to blame the vaccine for all kinds of side effects and health problems, many of which were previously undiagnosed. He says you have to look at all of the people who have been vaccinated and all of the diseases they have acquired and ask if those who have been vaccinated have a higher rate of those diseases than those unvaccinated. He says the answer is no, because even after giving a billion vaccines worldwide, diseases still occur that would have occurred anyway. He stresses the scientific evidence proves vaccines are safe, and urges everyone to get theirs as soon as possible.
Friday, May 21 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Media Update. It is Friday follow-up and Amanda Cackler, director of quality and safety, is back to help answer media and community questions. We will also have a special guest from St. Joseph with gifts for our front line workers.
ATTENTION: media procedure for calling in:
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