KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The number of new COVID-19 cases reported in Missouri dipped last week, but the state remains in a second wave of the pandemic.
There were 1,384 new cases reported from June 6-12 by the Department of Health and Senior Services and local health departments, a decline of 13.6% from the previous week.
The initial wave of coronavirus cases in Missouri peaked in early April, when there were 2,175 new cases reported.
Aside from one week in early May, the numbers of cases in the state had declined steadily throughout the next six weeks, but new cases began to creep back up in mid-May and peaked again in early June — at least, state and local health officials hope.
Roughly two weeks after Missouri reopened May 4 and amid a push for more community testing in the state, cases began to rise again — climbing 8%, 15.6% and 23% in successive weeks from May 16 through June 5.
After reporting more than 200 cases only nine days in May, Missouri has added at least 200 new COVID-19 cases in 12 of the first 16 days in June.
If there is a silver lining, the number of deaths from the virus plummeted to the lowest since early April during that time, but even the number of deaths has inched back up during the past two weeks.
It’s a similar story in the Kansas City area, where KCMO Health Director Dr. Rex Archer declared the city to be in the midst of a second wave late last week.
Much like the state of Missouri overall, the number of new COVID-19 cases dropped or at least leveled off throughout April and most of May, aside from one week in early May.
But the seven-county Kansas City metro saw a 53.8% jump in the number of new cases from May 30 to June 5.
The spike comes roughly two weeks after Kansas City, Missouri, reopened restaurants and loosened restrictions on public gatherings.
Mayor Quinton Lucas kept tighter restrictions in place after Gov. Mike Parson enacted the first — and as it turns out only — phase of his Show Me Strong Recovery Plan on May 4.
That delayed the second wave a bit in KCMO, but cases spiked as expected after the reopening began.
During seven of eight weeks from April 4 to May 29, an average of fewer than 460 new cases were reported in the Kansas City area.
That number spiked to 784 new cases from May 30 to June 5 and only dropped slightly — around 8.4% — to 718 new cases last week.
The story has been somewhat different in Kansas, which has yet to experience a second wave.
Cases spiked dramatically in early May, which is when health authorities began to hone in on meat-packing facilities as hot spots for COVID-19 transmission.
But after peaking at 2,104 new cases for the week of May 2-8, which is the same week cases spiked dramatically in Missouri and the Kansas City area, there has been a steady decline of new cases in Kansas.
The average number of new cases during the past three weeks has been 697, which is still about 20% higher than the rate of new infections Kansas reported during the first three weeks of April but ended a run of five consecutive weeks with at least 1,000 new cases.
Nationally, again aside from that first week in May, downward trend in new COVID-19 cases has continued steadily since early April, while the downward trend in deaths from the virus has been steady since mid-April.
—
