Doctors at The University of Kansas Health System report a decrease today in the number of COVID-19 patients being treated. 25 are in the hospital, compared to 28 yesterday. 10 of those patients are in the ICU, down from 11 yesterday, with six on ventilators, same as yesterday.
Robert Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of Clinical Reference Laboratory teamed up today with Chris Wilson, VP of system integration and innovation at The University of Kansas Health System to talk about saliva testing.
Chris Wilson discussed the collaboration between the health system and The University of Kansas to prepare for the mass testing of all students, faculty and staff returning to campus in a few weeks. He described the staged move-in process for students in which they bring their things to their dorms, by appointment, and then go back home. There they take a free self-administered saliva test, send it in for analysis and if cleared from COVID-19, return to campus for classes. He says the university has designated about 200 rooms where those who test positive and can’t return home can be isolated. He believes the most important factors will be daily testing once school starts and individual behavior in proper infection control techniques. He thinks KU can avoid what just happened at The University of North Carolina after a week of classes. Three outbreaks of the virus forced the school to go to all online classes. He adds it’s amazing how far testing has come since the pandemic began in March.
Robert Thompson’s company will provide the test kits and analysis for KU. He says they just received FDA approval and described how the saliva test works, adding “There is a decent amount of coronavirus in spit.” He says his company has the capacity to do 20,000 tests a day and hopes to be doing 50,000 a day by the end of September. He also addressed when saliva testing will be available to more of the general public. He hopes at some point, saliva home testing will be able to give results as well, saving the time of sending the kit to a lab for analysis.
Dana Hawkinson, MD, medical director of infection prevention and control at The University of Kansas Health System, believes anything we can do to make the testing more available will help stop the disease. He believes the saliva test will be used by more people because it doesn’t need a technician in PPE running a swab up the nose to administer. He likes the idea of an Olathe teacher who has begun tracking outbreaks in school systems nationwide and says rather than fearing the information, we should embrace the knowledge. He also reminded us that a person is infectious 8-9 days from the onset of symptoms.
Steve Stites, MD, chief medical officer at The University of Kansas Health System, asked if we are all having COWS. That stands for Covid Weariness Syndrome. He says until there’s a vaccine and an accurate daily test, the best way to stop the disease is to observe the same infection control measures they’ve been discussing every day. Those are wearing a mask, keeping socially distant, constant hand washing and coughing into your elbow.
Wednesday, August 19 at 8:00 a.m. is the next morning media update. Pediatrician Stephen Lauer returns to discuss what his parents are saying about their students going back to school and continued concerns around vaccines. Also joining the group is Dr. David Smith, medical director of Youth Sports Medicine.
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
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For those without Zoom, call 1-253-215-8782, meeting ID: 782 897 8628.
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