Following is the Saline County COVID-19 update for Friday.
Beginning the week of February 21, the Saline County Health Department will reduce the frequency of our COVID by The Numbers report to once per week.
COVID-19 was first reported in our county almost two years ago. Since the pandemic began much of our staffing, time, and resources have been diverted to combat the pandemic. Unfortunately, many long-standing and valuable programs provided by the Health Department have not received the attention they merit during that time. On this front, we intend to focus more of our energies to re-establish and strengthen non-COVID related public health programs.
Thankfully, reliable at-home testing has become ubiquitous in recent months offering the general public easy access to their COVID status. As at-home testing does not get reported to state or local authorities and it is not reflected in our data points. Additionally, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has taken over all new COVID case investigations.
Our intention is to give the public actionable data that you can use to make decisions and determinations in your personal health. Reducing this report to once a week, rather than three times a week will continue to give the community the information needed to make these decisions but also allow the Health Department staff to prioritize other health initiatives.
You can continue to find updated COVID information and data points on the websites below.
Saline County COVID-19 Information
KDHE COVID Overview
CDC COVID Data Tracker
According to the Salina Regional Health Center, 13 patients lost their lives to COVID, of those 7 (54 percent) were unvaccinated. Additionally, 105 people were admitted to the hospital for symptoms related to COVID-19. Of these, 63 patients (60 percent) were unvaccinated.
In this dataset, a person is considered to be vaccinated if they have received at least one approved vaccination against COVID-19.
This information does not include people who were transported to other hospitals due to bed or staff shortages at Salina Regional Health Center. Typically, juvenile cases of COVID are referred to Children's Mercy in Kansas City, or other children's hospitals.
Hospital data may include people who are not residents of Saline County.
Another member of our community has lost their life to COVID-19 since our last update on Wednesday, bringing the total number of lives lost in Saline County to 204.
The Salina Regional Health Center reports that there are currently 21 patients hospitalized battling COVID-19.
Another 51 positive COVID-19 test results have been reported to the Saline County Health Department since Wednesday. It is important to note, that this does not include home test kits or those who are presumed positive and do not test.
There are a recorded 408 active cases of COVID-19.
All new cases are now being handled by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.