KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Hospital leaders from the Kansas City metro are concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic going into fall.
Chief medical officers from a handful of hospitals will hold a virtual briefing Wednesday to discuss the status of the pandemic in the region.
The virtual briefing is open to the public and will include the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce as well as the executive director of Cooperating School Districts of Greater Kansas City.
According to the Kansas City, Missouri, coronavirus dashboard, the current two-week positivity rate is 9.71%, with the 18 to 22-year-old age group showing the highest number of cases.
According to the Johns Hopkins University COVID Tracking Project, Kansas currently has a 16% positivity rate, an increase from 11.4% over the course of a week.
Missouri shows a 13.8% positivity rate, a decrease from 14.4%.
Steve Hoeger, co-chair of the Mid-America Regional Council Health Care Coalition, said hospitals have been busy getting caught up on procedures and appointments they were not able to do at the start of the pandemic.
Hoeger said hospitals in the region are not dealing with nearly as many COVID-19 patients as they were in the beginning of the pandemic.
"That's really attributed to people doing the right things, wearing their mask, good social distancing, good hand hygiene, those things all appear to be working right now," Hoeger said.
With the increase of younger people contracting the virus, Hoeger said the threat of overrunning hospitals with coronavirus patients again is still very real.
"What we're really afraid is holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, if families go to see grandma and grandpa who they've avoided personal contact with for a number of months, then we start to get back into that population," Hoeger said.
Dr. Kenny Southwick, executive director for the Cooperating School Districts of Greater Kansas City, will attend the virtual briefing Wednesday.
"We're educators, we're not medical professionals, so we're really relying on them to provide good solid advice and watch the data as it evolves," Southwick said.
Southwick said whether districts are going back in-person, virtually or in a hybrid manner, they all have the end goal of being in-person.
"That's not going to happen overnight, but if we work it together, we've got a chance to beat this thing," Southwick said.
Wednesday's virtual briefing will be held from 10 to 11 a.m. The link can be found here.
