Kansas and Sedgwick County continue to have a surge in COVID-19 cases. The state reported another 19,414 cases on Friday, with 21 new deaths. The state has had 621,273 cases from the pandemic, with a total of 7,162 deaths.
Sedgwick County reported an increase of 1,101 cases on Friday, with no new deaths. The county has reported 899 deaths for the pandemic, according to numbers from the Sedgwick County Health Department. The county is reporting a positive testing rate of 21.3 percent, and hospitals remain in a critical status with over 250 patients reported this week.
Kansas reported 421 cases of the more-contagious omicron variant, with 30 cases in Sedgwick County.
Some school districts in Kansas canceled classes for Thursday and Friday because of staff shortages and student absences with COVID-19. Valley Center and El Dorado were among the districts that closed late in the week.
By the Associated Press:
Nursing homes are facing COVID-19 outbreaks, schools are closing and hospitals in the Kansas City area are seeing so many deaths that they are raising alarms about morgue capacity. The problems come as Kansas yet again shattered its record for new confirmed and probable cases.
The state reported an average of 7,887 new cases a day for the seven days ending Friday — nearly triple what had been the biggest peak in November 2020. While the omicron variant is less deadly, hospitalizations are approaching the previous high from December 2020, new state data shows.
