KANSAS CITY, Mo. — COVID-19 units at Kansas City metro hospitals look drastically different now than just a couple months ago.
“We had an average of 40 to 45 patients that were COVID positive in the hospital in mid-January, and we are now running in the single figures,” Dr. Larry Botts, chief medical officer at AdventHealth Shawnee Mission, said. “Somewhere between six and nine most of the time.”
Two people in AdventHealth Shawnee Mission’s COVID-19 intensive-care unit are on ventilators – also a decrease from the 10 to 12 patients earlier in the winter.
In January, nearly 40 employees were out at once due to COVID-19 exposure or quarantine. As of Monday, that number was two.
“We're able to rest people a little bit better,” Botts said. “They won’t have to work as much as they were working before because they were covering for other people.”
Truman Medical Center has no COVID-19 patients on ventilators.
“We've been running in the low teens, which is the lowest number of patients we've had in the hospital with COVID since back in June,” Dr. Mark Steele, TMC’s executive chief clinical officer, said. “I think that's quite a milestone.”
St. Joseph Medical Center reported no COVID-19 patients in isolation in the ICU.
The Kansas City VA announced in mid-February that none of its patients were COVID-19 positive, which hadn’t happened since last June.
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The University of Kansas Health System also is happy with its numbers – less than 40 COVID-19 patients.
“We’ve continued to be happy for these last few weeks on overall number of patients,” Dr. Dana Hawkinson said. “Obviously, we’d like to see that zero.”
Botts said residents receiving vaccines have contributed to the decrease in numbers.
“We're doing, I think, better in social distancing and masking overall, but also I think the vaccinations have made a big dent in that as well,” Botts said. “Even though we're still at a low percentage.”
TMC has vaccinated 50,000 people since December.
“When you go to the vaccination clinics, people are really excited to be able to get vaccinated,” Charlie Shields, TMC president and CEO, said, “but I think more excited to see sort of that this thing is coming around to a positive end.”
