TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – Shawnee Co. is back to the maximum number of 24 on its COVID-19 community transmission card.
Shawnee Co. Health Officers published the update Thursday afternoon, saying they are starting to see a spike in post-holiday cases.
It comes a day after the county saw a record number of cases of the virus reported to the health department, at 233.
The incidence trend index – which was in the “low” zone last week and declining, was in the “uncontrolled” zone in the latest report, with new cases up 43 percent from a week earlier.
Health officials say Shawnee Co. only Thursday registered 152 newly confirmed cases. In the province, 42 residents have also died from COVID-related illnesses in the past two weeks.
Shawnee Co. also saw an increase in the percentage of tests that returned positive, from 9.9 percent last week to 12.8 percent this week. The occupancy rate of hospitals is also back above 90 percent.
“We are very busy with COVID again, it hasn’t really stopped that we feel like we have reached and feel a bit of a plateau at this point,” said Stormont Vail Health CEO, Dr. Robert Kenagy at the health department’s virtual press conference.
Health officials say 86 percent of cases in Shawnee Co. had no known source of infection, up from 92 percent a week earlier, but still in the “uncontrolled” zone.
Last week’s overall score was 18.
On the vaccine front, interim health official Dr. Dennis Cooley that the county is working to vaccinate health workers and those in phase one of vaccination groups.
He said a faster roll-out of the vaccine is based on things like space availability, staff and certainty that no doses of the vaccine are wasted.
He said as more people qualify, it will be a group effort to make sure everyone gets their dose.
“These will be bigger numbers that we’ll be dealing with, so it’s going to be a whole community-wide kind of action that will allow us to get the vaccine into these groups,” he said.
Even as availability increases, he said people shouldn’t forget about safety guidelines.
“Even though you’re vaccinated, you still have to use masks, you still have space and you still have to wash your hands and everything we tell you,” he said.
When it comes to entering vaccine administration data, as state health officials have discussed, Steve Anderson of the University of Kansas Saint Francis campus said that all 20 staff vaccine administrators are trained to enter data.
Dr. Kenagy said 100 percent of the vaccine administrators at Stormont Vail are also trained in this.
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