Coping with COVID: Regional CMO COVID-19 briefing

More than a dozen regional hospital medical officers, educators, business leaders and elected officials gathered on-line this morning to issue a stark warning for the Kansas City area: A sharp increase in rates of people testing positive for COVID-19 is placing significant stress on the health-care system, and could threaten the progress made to reopen businesses and schools.

Their request: For more people to exercise greater individual responsibility and help stop the viral spread.

Citing figures that show both Missouri and Kansas well above the 10-percent positivity threshold that public officials believe is an indicator of success in combatting the virus, Unified Government Mayor/CEO prefaced the discussion with a challenge to the community: “The virus has taken us to the red zone,” he said. “Either we get control of the virus, or the virus will take control of us.”

More than 700 people, many in the public-health and provider spheres, tuned in via Zoom and YouTube streaming as medical officers from half a dozen hospitals, plus representatives from K-12 and higher education, addressed the impact on their organizations. They issued a collective public appeal for people to show increased vigilance by committing to face-mask usage, maintaining appropriate distancing in public, avoiding crowded venues and continuing to practice hand-washing and sanitation to slow the spread.

Otherwise, said Steven Stites, chief medical officer for the University of Kansas Hospital, public health officials might be compelled to resume the restrictions on businesses and schools that the region suffered through when the pandemic unfolded in the spring.

“People are tired of not wearing masks, of not being out in groups, of not going to football games,” he said. “A lot folks think this is not that bad, that they’re not going to get it, but it’s just not true.”

He was joined by his peer physicians from Liberty Hospital, AdventHealth Shawnee Mission, Truman Medical Centers, North Kansas City Hospital, Lawrence Memorial Hospital and the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Kansas City. Each spoke about impact on their facilities as hospitalizations continue to rise. Also on the call were Kim Beatty, chancellor at Metropolitan Community College; Kenny Southwick, executive director for the Cooperating School Districts of Kansas City; and Joe Reardon, chief executive for the sponsoring Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.

David Wild, one of Stites’ wingmen at the Wyandotte County medical center, said that while the patient census there has been fairly stable day-to-day, that’s only because rates of patient discharges have kept up with the increasing COVID-related hospitalizations. The current level of admissions, he said, is higher now than at any point since the outbreak’s first peak in April.

“We have a narrow window” to control the spread, Wild said, citing guidance from President Trump’s medical adviser on pandemic management, Deborah Birx, who visited the region in mid-August. “Dr. Birx said we had the potential to become something we don’t want to be: An area overwhelmed” by increasing caseloads, he said. “We did a great job early in the pandemic of flattening the curve in the community. We showed we can do it in the community, and everyone knows how hard it was.”

But case trends, he warned, reflect near-exponential growth. “As growth speeds up,” he said, “it becomes exponential, it becomes uncontrolled.” If that happens, the impact on hospitals and health-care systems, already stressed will reach crisis levels.