Report: Pandemic could cost state $5.9 billion

? A severe influenza pandemic would kill an estimated 22,000 Kansans and cost the state’s economy more than $5.9 billion, according to a newly released report.

The Trust for America’s Health projected Thursday the state’s economic loss would amount to 5.58 percent of goods and services produced in Kansas. It also projected 810,000 Kansans would be sickened by a severe pandemic.

The report is the first to provide a state-by-state breakdown of economic losses, but the group’s estimate of projected deaths in Kansas from a pandemic outbreak is far higher than previous official estimates.

Earlier projections had estimated pandemic influenza deaths in the range of 1,100 to 2,500 in Kansas, said Richard Morrissey, deputy director of the Division of Health for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Those official projections also estimated between 208,000 and 486,000 pandemic cases and 10,700 hospitalizations in Kansas.

Morrissey attributed the difference between estimates to the planning assumptions used in models. The official estimate used a “moderate version” of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention models, while the newly released Trust for America’s Health report used the worst-case scenario for the same models.

“I’ve got to emphasize it is not like someone knows which is the correct one,” Morrissey said, adding that there is an ongoing scientific debate about the potential severity of the next pandemic outbreak.

The group’s ranking of a pandemic economic impact places Kansas 22nd among the nation’s states, well behind states whose economies rely primarily on tourism and entertainment.