Sunflower State News

Kansas finds itself at 346 deaths per million making it 16th in the country when it comes to COVID-related deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project.

 The project found that when it comes to COVID-19 data, people have been looking at decontextualized data, which is causing hysteria like children staying out of school and businesses shutting down. 

Kansas’ deaths and hospitalizations have not followed the same path as case increases and, instead, the state rose to slightly more than 150 people per million in hospitals per day, which isn’t anywhere near increased case numbers. 

 “With a death rate that is lower than 1/4 that of Massachusetts, and almost 1/6 that of NY, and hospitalizations barely more than 150/million, Kansas has kept its curve flat,” the commentary states. “Kansas has recently reached 5 deaths/day/million, but hospitalizations look to be relatively flat if not declining--despite consistently rising cases since June.”

Since Sept. 15, there has been a significant increase in testing for COVID-19 at 55 percent, which has also led to an increase in positive cases, leading many to assume the country is heading into a third wave of infections and deaths.

 Emily Burns with The Pragmatist writes that it’s important to put the new numbers into context so that people will make wise decisions regarding what to do about the pandemic. She writes that in May, cases were tracked at nearly the same as hospitalizations. She notes that deaths and hospitalizations are more reliable data when tracking than cases are.

With COVID-19 testing up 70 percent since the second wave, Burns points out that the surge in testing is responsible for the increased number of new cases seen across the nation, not an increased infection rate many have been led to believe.