In our mind, we can rest easy from the COVID-19 pandemic when health authorities determine the number of infections is at a manageable point.
We’re not there yet.
In the past month, Kansas has logged an additional 4,450 cases, 450 hospitalizations and 89 deaths from the coronavirus. Altogether, more than 5,100 Kansans have succumbed to the virus.
That’s some bug.
ON FRIDAY, Dr. Lee Norman of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said testing for the virus will still be required at all state-licensed adult care facilities, despite the decision by legislative leaders to let the state’s disaster declaration expire on June 15.
Fortunately, Dr. Norman’s authority exceeds that of legislators when it comes to state-licensed facilities. Norman should take it one step further and require state healthcare workers get the vaccine.
In addition to watching out for patients’ health, such a step also protects the state’s pocketbook. Now that vaccines are widely available to guard against COVID-19, healthcare facilities run serious legal risks if a patient becomes infected from contact with an unvaccinated worker.
Plain and simple, there’s no excuse for hospital, clinic and nursing home employees not to be vaccinated.
Plain and simple, there’s no excuse for hospital, clinic and nursing home employees not to be vaccinated.
“Getting vaccinated is part of the health care ethic,” Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the State and Territorial Health officials, said in a recent article. “You take care of physically very vulnerable people and you need to protect them.”
HERE in the United States, dying from the virus is “entirely preventable,” according to Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for those vaccinated.
Currently, about 45% of the country is fully vaccinated, with the breakdown as follows: Those 65 and older, 80% vaccinated; 18 to 65, almost 50%, and those 18 and younger, less than 10% vaccinated.
The reason health authorities are fearful we’ve hit a vaccine plateau is that there’s a new variant of the virus — the delta strain — that is especially contagious and lethal.
The good news is that the vaccines here — Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — are effective against this more virulent strain.
The bad news is that unless more of the country’s eligible population is vaccinated, the delta variant will undermine our success thus far.
