photo by: Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health

April 21 COVID-19 update from the health department

Douglas County reported 9,131 cases of COVID-19 as of Wednesday, an increase of 27 cases since Monday.

In Douglas County, 8,953 out of the 9,131 cases are inactive or beyond the infectious period, according to Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, meaning 178 cases are active.

The health department will not update its COVID-19 epidemiological dashboard on Thursday because it will be holding a mass vaccination clinic.

The county has averaged about eight new cases per day over the last 14 days, according to a 14-day moving average graph updated weekdays by the health department. The current average of 7.93 new cases per day is up from a low of just under seven new cases per day in mid-March and down from a recent high of 71 cases per day in early January.

Douglas County has a 14-day COVID-19 incidence rate of 92.28 per 100,000 people and a test positivity rate of 2.9%. Four patients at Lawrence’s hospital had COVID-19 on Wednesday, two more than Monday. To date, 87 Douglas County residents have died from COVID-19.

Registration for all vaccination clinics will be open to the public, and registration codes will be posted at LDCHealth.org/COVIDVaccine and Douglascountyks.org/Coronavirus. Any residents with questions about COVID-19 or the vaccine interest form may call Douglas County’s help line at 785-864-9000.

At the University of Kansas, there is a 2.24% COVID-19 positivity rate among faculty, staff and students for the most recent seven-day period for which data is available. Out of 401 total tests between April 12 and April 18, nine came back positive. One week ago, KU had a 1.4% positivity rate. Out of 428 total tests between April 5 and April 11, six came back positive.