The number of COVID-19 patients at The University of Kansas Health System is the same today as yesterday. 15 people with the active virus are being treated. Of those patients, five are in the ICU, up from four yesterday. One of those ICU patients is on a ventilator today, down from two yesterday. 31 other patients are still hospitalized because of COVID-19, but are out of the acute infection phase, which is down from 34 yesterday. That’s a total of 46 patients, down from 49 yesterday. In addition, HaysMed has a total of 12 COVID-19 inpatients, down from 14 yesterday, with seven of those active patients and five in the recovery phase.
On today’s Morning Media Update, the discussion focused on how COVID-19 is impacting the need for liver transplants. Transplant Hepatologist Dr. Ryan Taylor and Director of Transplant Dr. Timothy Schmitt joined Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at The University of Kansas Health System and Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of Infection Prevention and Control at The University of Kansas Health System to explain what is happening, how it is impacting our community and what you can do to stay safe.
The call kicked off with the big news from yesterday that Texas has canceled its mask mandate and, separately, President Biden’s comments about having enough vaccine for Americans by the end of May. Dr. Stites warned that COVID-19 transmission has not stopped, it’s just been reduced by the great work everyone has done so far. In short, people cannot let their guards down about this virus. Knowing that the country is approaching a year or more of dealing with this virus, it can be easy for everyone to let up on the battle against COVID-19. The doctors warned that the right precautions – wear your mask, social distance – continue to be important, regardless of the optimism in the news about reopenings and vaccines. “Don’t fumble the ball this late in the game,” Dr. Stites said.
Focusing on the effects the pandemic on liver transplants, the group shared that data around alcohol induced liver transplants coming out of transplant centers across the nation is going up, with increased alcohol consumption and hospital admissions for alcoholic-related liver diseases up nationally in some hospitals by 40 to 50 percent.
Dr. Schmitt and Dr. Taylor said alcohol certainly is a prime indication for transplant right now and referred to studies on the increased use of alcohol as a coping mechanism for the pandemic. He said we may start seeing the effects of this pandemic on liver disease from both the fatty liver disease from isolation, not exercising as normal, or just at home by yourself -- compounded with the stress and coping mechanisms of over eating or increases in consumption of alcohol. We may be experiencing an increase in liver disease over the next five years.
As it pertains to drinking alcohol and liver disease, Dr. Taylor explained some of the general guidelines for alcohol intake. While every case is different based on an individual’s health condition, there are some recommendations. For men, if you have more than 14 drinks in a week the NIAA, which is the government entity that researches alcohol, says that your risk of chronic health conditions increase. And then for women, it's more than seven drinks in a week or one drink per day for women. So women have a much lower threshold, and we are seeing rises in women that are coming in with liver disease, especially at younger ages. If you have fatty liver and drink more alcohol, you are going to be more prone to faster liver damage.
Dr. Taylor reported that when it comes to liver transplant patients being more prone to COVID-19 infections, the liver transplant data suggests that patients with liver transplants and contract COVID-19 do actually as well as people without a transplant. This is really a very fascinating because we're all worried about the immunosuppression, but some of the data is starting to show that the immunosuppression itself may be somewhat protective.
The doctors also discussed how liver transplant recipients can receive the COVID-19 vaccine, but the question is, when will a transplant recipient be offered the vaccine? The doctors think in Kansas and probably in Missouri, the most likely scenario is April or May, but it will depend on when they had the transplant and several other factors. There's a push to get certain conditions moved up in the phases to get the vaccine, but right now, there are some states that are approaching this a little differently. In all cases, it is important to work with doctors to determine the best point in time to receive a vaccine if you have had a transplant.
In terms of how the pandemic has affected organ donations, Dr. Schmitt reported on how UNOS (the United Network for Organ Sharing), the government contracting agency that controls how organs are allocated, is sharing data.
According to Dr. Schmitt, in February of 2020, the data showed that most of the organs have shifted from coming from a local source to now organs coming from about 600 miles away from the donor hospital. So now the health system is getting more organs from states like Kentucky, Wisconsin and Texas. And whereas as the health system used to get 90 percent of organs from the local area, the health system is now getting about 50 percent of organs from a more national area. It is immensely important for organ donors to continue donating no matter where they are.
Thursday, March 4 at 8:00 a.m. is the next Morning Media Update.
Dr. Terry Rosell, Director, Ethics Consultation Service and professor of history and philosophy of medicine at KUMC joins for a discssion about ethical issues that have been part of the chronic and crucial conversations of this virus. He works closely with John Carney, President and CEO, Center for Practical Bioethics, who will also join. We will talk about vaccine equity and the questions around having to carry a vaccination card in the future to travel among other topics.
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