WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – Kansas has managed to travel backward in pandemic time. Suddenly, it’s February again. Except this time, the state faces a version of COVID-19 that’s twice as contagious.
The delta variant is plowing through a lightly vaccinated population, and multiplying fast. In mid-June, Kansas saw hundreds of new cases a week. Now, there are thousands of new cases per week.
That’s why time really matters. Say you get a shot of Pfizer tomorrow, then the second dose three weeks later. A couple more weeks must pass before your body has built up its arsenal of antibodies to guard you against hospitalization and death.
Deputy state health officer Joan Duwve said:
“Five weeks is a long time. That’s just a prime opportunity for this virus to find you, to make you sick and to spread to other members of your family.”
“Vaccine hesitancy is still an issue in the United States. More than 162 million Americans have received their shot. That leaves us still under 50 percent. Here in Kansas, just over 41 percent of people are fully vaccinated.” – KWCH, Wichita, Kan., Jul. 23, 2021
Yes, you can still catch COVID-19 after getting a vaccine, but misinformation about what that means deflects from this simple fact: For the vast majority of people, your vaccinated body will be ready for it.
Vaughn Cooper, who heads the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said:
“These are just heroic vaccines. The chief scientific achievements of my lifetime.”
Around 99% of recent coronavirus deaths in the U.S. and 97% of the hospitalizations involved people who were unvaccinated.
Each day, a few thousand Kansans get a shot of the vaccine that scientists say can stop this pandemic.
Meantime, Kansas hospitals are filling beds fast, and some are turning away seriously ill COVID patients from other areas and asking nurses to sign up for extra shifts.
The delta in Kansas
In late April, Kansas identified its first case of the delta variant. Now almost all the COVID cases here are this flavor … READ MORE.
