KANSAS CITY, Mo. — COVID-19 cases and deaths in the Kansas City region approached record levels in August fueled by the emergence of the delta variant, but those rates continued to drop precipitously in October.
In fact, the number of new cases and deaths reported from COVID-19 dropped across the board in the Kansas City area as well as Kansas and Missouri, according to the KSHB 41 News COVID-19 Tracker.
While the downward trend is encouraging, the number of new cases remains significantly higher than they were from March through June before southwest Missouri became a delta-variant hot spot.
There have now been more than 250,000 COVID-19 cases combined in Johnson, Leavenworth and Wyandotte counties in Kansas plus Cass, Clay, Jackson and Platte counties in Missouri.
That includes more than 3,500 people who have died from COVID-19 complications, according to state and local health department reports.
More than 13,000 Missourians and nearly 6,500 Kansans have died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
That includes more than 1,000 deaths reported in October.
