KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Analysis of COVID-19 data reported by state and local health departments shows the number of cases and deaths in Kansas and Missouri continues to accelerate.
Missouri and Kansas both set new records for the number of new cases reported in September, while both states and the seven-county Kansas City region set new records for the number of deaths reported in a single month.
Missouri health departments reported 597 deaths related to COVID-19 in September, breaking the previous high of 433 deaths reported in May. It also represented a 78.2% increase from August.
Kansas wasn’t spared. There were 226 deaths reported last month across the state, which is more than double the total for August (94) and shattered the previous monthly record for the state (120 in April).
The KC area — which includes Johnson, Leavenworth and Wyandotte in Kansas along with Cass, Clay, Jackson and Platte counties in Missouri for our tracking purposes — also saw a record number of deaths with 140 in September, a 35.9% increase from August.
The previous high for the Kansas City area was 129 in April.
Missouri also saw a record number of new cases with 45,609 confirmed infections in September alone.
For context, that is nearly double the number of COVID-19 cases reported by state and local health departments in Missouri from March through June, when there were a total of 22,344 lab-confirmed infections.
More than 83% of Missouri’s 131,497 confirmed COVID-19 infections have come during the last three months.
The pandemic began to accelerate in the Missouri and Kansas region until July, when the number of new cases reported in the Kansas City area as well as Kansas and Missouri nearly tripled compared to June.
Missouri has seen continued growth from 28,745 new cases in July to 34,799 new cases in August to more than 45,000 last month.
Kansas also saw the number of new COVID-19 cases climb from 13,564 in July to 15,052 in August to a record 17,584 in September.
The KC area has bucked that trend with the number of new cases declining slightly from a high of 12,487 in July to 11,970 in August and 10,660 last month.
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Staff at 41 Action News has tracked the COVID-19 pandemic in the region by checking local and state health departments websites, dashboards and reports for more than 200 consecutive days.
The data can be found on the 41 Action News Daily COVID-19 Tracker. Take a deeper dive into our data through our interactive maps.
