COVID hospitalizations fall below 1,000 threshold for first time in nearly one month

Tuesday reports from 25 of 27 reporting hospitals in the KC metro show hospitalizations have fallen below 1,000, a first since Jan. 4, 2022, according to the Mid-America Regional Council’s COVID-19 Data Hub.

With a positive trend increasing, however, area health officials remain wary and push caution as levels remain above early 2021 counts.

Twenty-five of 27 area hospitals reported in on Tuesday, Feb. 1, but the missing two account for a combined total of 97 beds.

Tuesday’s count was 966, down from a Jan. 20 peak of 1082 — a decline of 10.7 percent. That 966 figure represents 23.6 percent of available beds, well above the 15 percent threshold that qualifies as significant added stress on health-care systems.

Nationally, case counts are down more than two-thirds over the past two weeks. Locally, Kansas is roughly on par with the winter of 21 surge, as hospitalizations are slightly higher but deaths are slightly lower, even though case counts are 226 percent of peak.

Missouri is having a harder time of it; although cases are up only about 55 percent, hospitalizations are 42 percent higher than the early 2021 peak, though deaths are slightly lower compared to that peak.