'Teetering on crisis,' KC medical directors plea for vaccination, masking; here's how to save lives

Photo from the Briefing from Region’s Chief Medical Officers’ slide presentation

It was a roll call of pain, fear — even death.

Kansas City area medical directors shared their grim accounting with the city in a public call for help Friday, beseeching a community “teetering on a precipice” to get vaccinated and to mask-up against Covid-19’s Delta variant.

Truman Medical Centers’ report: 55 Covid patients today, 17 in the intensive care unit, five on ventilators.

North Kansas City Hospital: 72 Covid patients, 13 in ICU, nine on ventilators.

AdventHealth System: 34 Covid patients, eight in ICU, six on ventilators.

Get your vaccination info: kclinc.org/covid19

The list went on and on, with numbers that the medical directors said were matching and exceeding the peaks from last fall.

Hospitals are short-staffed, they said. Too often emergency rooms are full. And people with other illnesses and conditions, some even in ambulances, too often pass from one hospital to another in search of space.

“We don’t have beds to give,” said Steve Stites, chief medical officer of the University of Kansas Health System. “Patients with time-critical diagnoses are backed up . . . Heart tissue is being destroyed. Brain tissue is being destroyed.”

The “long-term answer,” Stites said, is getting as many people vaccinated as possible.

MARC data of the KC area shared in the Regional Medical Officers’ Briefing

The “short-term answer,” he said, is for everyone to wear masks when they are in indoor public spaces.

“The risk is everywhere,” he said. “It’s all around us. It’s inside of us . . . We need your help. We hope you have heard our message loudly and clearly.”

Watch the full Chief Medical Officers’ briefing here.

LINC and Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church’s vaccination clinic at 27th and Prospect Avenue has been resuming vaccination events, partnering with Heart to Heart International and Truman Medical Centers to push harder with the community to get more people vaccinated.

The next clinic is Aug. 11 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the church’s Youth and Family Life Center, 2525 E. 27th Street. It is a walk-in clinic and all Covid vaccinations are free.

Other venues are opening vaccination clinics, including the Kansas City Public Library and Mid-Continent Public Library branches. More events are coming and other vaccination opportunities can be found at kclinc.org/covid19.

Getting people vaccinated, especially as schools prepare to reopen, is important in protecting children who aren’t eligible yet for vaccines, said Jennifer Watts, the director for emergency preparedness at Children’s Mercy Hospital.

“Everybody saw how important school is,” Watts said. “Our top priority is to keep kids in school.”

The way to do that, she said, is “to cocoon the children” by “having everyone around them vaccinated.”

And then everyone should take the precautions of wearing masks, hand-washing and routine cleaning, she said.

The medical directors reported that roughly 90 percent of the Covid patients in area hospitals have not been vaccinated. And nearly all of the patients in ICUs and on ventilators have not been vaccinated. Most of the vaccinated patients who are hospitalized with Covid have other significant health issues.

Both Heart to Heart International and Truman Medical Centers have been working with partners in the community to try to beat vaccine hesitancy that has kept many people from getting protection.

The Morning Star clinic, which the church and LINC opened in February, joins in their mission to deliver vaccines to historically underserved communities that have suffered disproportionate pain during the pandemic.

“Vaccine hesitancy is high and we want to reduce that as much as we can,” said Celeste Lupercio, the event site coordinator for Heart to Heart International. “We have been more successful when we go to smaller communities where there is common ground. There is a comfort with community.”

“We want to meet people where they are,” she said, “and people know that Morning Star is a place where they can go.”

The medical directors relayed numbers from across the area stressed that the Delta variant is more infectious than the original Covid-19, and the patients this time around are more likely to be between 30 and 59 years old than previously. And they are usually unvaccinated.

“We know vaccines save lives,” said Ahmad Batrash, chief of staff for the Kansas City VA Medical Center.

The number of VA patients being treated for Covid, in-patient and out-patient, “has tripled from just two weeks ago,” he said, describing the “alarming” surge in the Delta variant.

Area-wide, according to data compiled by the Mid-America Regional Council, the seven-day average of new Covid cases on Aug. 5 was 737, which exceeded the 695 cases when the medical directors made a similar public plea for help Nov. 5, 2020.

The KC area “bent the curve back” before, the medical directors said, and it can be done again.

No doubt everyone is exhausted, said Joe Reardon, president and CEO of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, which hosted the medical directors’ briefing. “We know our economy, work force and families are stretched thin.”

But we have to rally again. Everyone wearing masks with others indoors. As many people getting vaccinated as possible.

“We have to respond,” Stites said, “to keep everyone safe.”

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer