TOPEKA, Kan. – Governor Laura Kelly and the rest of the State Finance Council heard encouraging news about COVID-19 trends statewide.
John Rolph, the Chair of Kansas Regional Response Reports, the number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 sits at 450 this week, down from 718 two weeks ago.
The number of patients in the ICU is down as well, from 175 two weeks ago to 113 this week.
The time it takes to transfer a COVID-19 patient to another hospital is down as well to about 90 minutes.
Last month, there was a more than four hour average waiting time to get a patient transferred.
Rolph said, generally less people are getting tested for COVID-19 but is hoped that number is due to less virus in the state.
However, he said most discussions with state leaders now revolve around vaccines which Rolph said continues to be a “supply-side” issue and not a distribution issue.
He used the example of Johnson Co., where there’s over 95 thousand people over the age of 65 but the county receives just over 6,800 doses of a vaccine each week.
“The race for this state is to make sure we’re getting the most vulnerable vaccinated before a spring spike or before the UK variant takes hold so I believe there’s good focus from the majority of health departments out there and people who are working on vaccines to make sure we’re getting through that group,” Rolph told lawmakers.
