KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Both Kansas City, Missouri, and the state overall saw a slight uptick in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases last week.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson eased restrictions on gatherings and lifted the statewide stay-at-home order effective May 4.
Roughly two weeks later, which is believed to be the incubation period for the COVID-19 virus, the state saw the number of confirmed cases creep up nearly 8%.
However, the 1,043 new cases reported for the week ending May 15 were the fewest for any week since the early days of the pandemic.
The 1,126 new cases reported last week, from May 16 through 22 based on the 41 Action News data analysis, was the second-fewest since the week ending April 3 when 2,175 new cases were reported in the state.
Missouri also has ramped up testing in recent weeks, especially around suspected clusters at meatpackingand long-term care facilities that have reported positive cases.
Combined with a lag in reporting from some private labs, it’s hard to draw definitive conclusions about the rising number of cases next week, but it undoubtedly will become a concern for health officials if confirmed cases continue to creep up in the next few weeks.
A similar pattern emerged in the Kansas City area last week.
For more than two months, 41 Action News has tracked cases based on state and local health department reports for both states — including Cass, Clay, Jackson and Platte counties in Missouri and Johnson, Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties in Kansas.
Fewer than 500 new cases were reported in the seven-county Kansas City for four of five weeks from mid-April to mid-May, a trend that stopped last week.
There were 517 new cases reported for the week ending May 22, a 15.4% increase from the previous week when only 448 new cases were reported.
Again, one week doesn’t make for an alarming trend, but it’s worth being mindful, especially since the increase roughly corresponds with reopening of the Missouri economy.
The number of deaths in the seven-county metro has remained relatively flat during the past four weeks with 14 to 20 new deaths reported during that span — down from 42 for the week ending April 17 and 32 for the week ending April 24.
There also has been some good news on that front overall in Missouri, where the number of COVID-19 deaths reported peaked with 123 deaths for the week ending May 8.
That figure dropped to 101 the next week and 98 last week.
Kansas, where Johnson and Wyandotte counties delayed economic reopening for a week until May 11, has seen the number of cases drop precipitously for two consecutive weeks.
With massive outbreaks reported at meatpacking facilities in Ford and Finney counties in southwestern Kansas, the number of new cases topped out at 2,104 for the week ending May 8 before dropping to 1,281 the next week and 1,056 last week, a five-week low.
That’s still significantly more than the early stages of the pandemic, when Kansas never reported more 644 cases before the week ending April 24.
The state has reported at least 1,000 cases for five consecutive weeks, but last week’s total is the fewest during that span.
The number of deaths reported in Kansas last week — 17 — are the fewest since mid-March.
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| Population | Week ending April 3 | Week ending 4/ 10 | Week ending 4/17 | Week ending 4/24 | Week ending May 1 | Week ending May 8 | Week ending May 15 | Week ending May 22 |
| KCMO cases | 691 | 547 | 440 | 351 | 406 | 1,177 | 448 | 517 |
| KCMO deaths | 20 | 29 | 42 | 32 | 14 | 20 | 16 | 16 |
| Kansas cases | 644 | 564 | 536 | 1,193 | 1,677 | 2,104 | 1,281 | 1,056 |
| Kansas deaths | 18 | 32 | 34 | 31 | 21 | 26 | 28 | 17 |
| Missouri cases | 2,175 | 1,777 | 1,469 | 1,345 | 1,281 | 1,689 | 1,043 | 1,126 |
| Missouri deaths | 37 | 68 | 84 | 83 | 89 | 123 | 101 | 98 |
| U.S. cases | 277,953 | 222,435 | 201,765 | 188,360 | 212,937 | 180,468 | 159,259 | 157,594 |
| U.S. deaths | 7,152 | 11,541 | 18,361 | 13,963 | 13,926 | 12,237 | 10,379 | 8,413 |
Nationally, the number of confirmed cases, which spiked in late April, have declined three consecutive weeks.
But the rate of that decline slowed entering Memorial Day weekend.
The number of confirmed cases reported in the U.S. peaked in late March and early April, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
There were 212,937 new positive COVID-19 cases announced for the week ending May 1.
For the week ending May 8, the number of new cases dropped by more than 15.2%, with 180,468 reported.
The number of new cases dropped nearly 11.8% for the week ending May 15 to 159,259 new cases, but it only dropped 1% last week as 157,594 new cases were reported.
Additionally, COVID-19 deaths have continued to drop five consecutive weeks from a peak of 18,361 deaths for the week ending April 17 to 8,413 last week.
