November COVID-19 metrics send mixed signals

Statistics associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in the two-state region paint a mixed story of progress and decline for the month of November.

There’s no question that, in Missouri, the virus staged a comeback from its Delta-variant lows recorded just before Halloween. The state had seen its new daily case counts fall below 1,000 as November began, but that total surged nearly 60 percent by the end of the month, to 1,585 cases recorded on Tuesday.

Kansas fared significantly better. After starting the month at 805 daily cases and peaking mid-month, the daily case count retreated to 800 by Tuesday.

Far more encouraging: the lethality of the virus has been sharply diminished, something that many physicians attribute to higher levels of vaccinations. That’s especially true for the most vulnerable population set, those 65 and older. The New York Times daily tracking project says that 99 percent of the people in that age group have been vaccinated.

In Missouri, the rolling seven-day average of daily deaths fell from 14 at the start of November to just two as of Tuesday—that represents the lowest level since the first weeks of the pandemic. In Kansas, which was hit later by the Delta surge, the average daily death count fell from 25 to just four.

Still, the illness is placing additional strain on regional health-care providers. The Mid-America Regional Council’s daily dashboard as of this morning showed more than 450 people hospitalized as COVID-19 patients, up more than 50 percent from a Delta-era low of 298 at the start of November at the 27 hospitals that frequently report data to MARC.