Seventeen extra residents of southwest Missouri have died of COVID-19 in Greene County’s newest reporting interval because the area has skilled a spike in circumstances and a brief provide of the medical tools wanted to deal with the severely in poor health.
On Tuesday, the Springfield-Greene County Health Department reported the loss of life toll was the very best in a single reporting interval since January. The interval coated between June 21 and July 4, and the entire fatalities occurred in June, well being officers stated.
The useless ranged in age from their 40s to 90s. None have been vaccinated, based on the well being division.
“This should be extremely concerning to our community, especially as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to infect and hospitalize many people,” Acting Director of Health Katie Towns stated in an announcement Tuesday. “It’s our responsibility to protect ourselves and our loved ones from this deadly virus by getting vaccinated.”
Renewed requires vaccination have come as lethal variants of COVID-19 have spawned inside Missouri’s borders. The Delta variant, which has change into the predominant driver of latest circumstances in the state, is one pressure of the virus thought of to probably trigger extra extreme sickness and better danger of loss of life.
Health officers say these getting sick now are largely unvaccinated and the deaths and surges of hospitalizations are preventable. Elected officers too, together with Gov. Mike Parson, have publicly warned in opposition to resurgences of the virus and inspired folks to get vaccinated.
“The bottom line that people need to know: this virus is still here, and it’s going to be here,” Parson stated final week. “It’s just not going to go away.”
Missouri has reported 528,802 whole circumstances because the starting of the pandemic, together with 9,340 deaths. The state has administered 4,992,721 vaccine doses, with 44.8% of the inhabitants initiating vaccination.
The information in Greene County comes after Mercy Springfield hospital skilled a scarcity of ventilators — used to deal with sufferers with extreme respiratory issues — over the Fourth of July weekend.
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On Monday, well being officers there stated extra ventilators had arrived and a second COVID-19 ICU unit was opened. By Tuesday, CoxHealth CEO Steve Edwards posted a “call to arms” asking for respiratory therapists to assist deal with the affected person load.
In Kansas City, the metropolitan area added almost 800 extra COVID-19 circumstances over the previous week because the rolling common rose to 112 — breaching 100 for the primary time since late May. One week in the past, the common sat at 83 and two weeks in the past, it was 63, based on knowledge maintained by The Star.
The Star’s Lisa Gutierrez and Katie Moore contributed to this report.
