Kansas City becoming epicenter of current COVID-19 surge, other communities could be impacted.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —Steve Stites, chief medical officer at the University of Kansas Health System, used blunt language to describe the problems confronting hospitals across the metro, which boil down to too many patients and too few beds. ‘We are past the tipping point. We are in trouble,’ Stites said. He described a Thursday morning call between area chief medical officers in which the hospital leaders were in agreement about mandates. ‘I think you are going to find the chief medical officers are going to call for a reinstitution of the mask mandates and social distancing because we had that discussion this morning and we were all in favor of it because we’re in trouble in the hospitals,’ Stites said during KU’s morning briefing. ‘The storm is here,’ Dr. Steve Stites said. ‘Take shelter from the storm. Now we’re at the epicenter.’”

"Although 10 Metro health departments now have mask ‘advisories’, there remains no mandates. Most people still refuse to mask up: indoors or out. Social distancing no longer holds any meaning.”

"If we do not get this virus suppressed within our community, it will keep mutating," Frank Thompson, deputy director of the Kansas City, Missouri Health Department, said, "and there will eventually be a mutation that we will not be able to respond to."

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“Florida, Missouri and Texas now account for 40% of new coronavirus cases in U.S.” The overall seven-day positivity rate for Missouri climbed to 14.4%, according to the MDHSS. That number is the highest since Jan. 11.

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“This Missouri State’s Fair Is Set to Be a Cesspool of COVID & the Unvaxxed”

"From July 29 to Aug. 7, there will be a display of total insanity in Springfield.(ie, the Ozark Empire Fair ). Never mind that the Delta COVID-19 variant is rocking Springfield-Greene County with its highest number of COVID hospitalizations in the pandemic—259 with “severe illness” by Tuesday’s count, more than 90 percent of them unvaccinated."

"The nine-day event draws tens of thousands of people from Springfield and the surrounding counties. Organizers are seeking to boost attendance with a logo that notes this is Missouri’s bicentennial as a state. A retired Springfield 911 supervisor named Bill Blevins put it another way in a Facebook post. ‘Be sure and get in on the Covid-19 Super Spreader event of the summer! Ride the Ventilator!’ Meanwhile, the trajectory of new cases suggests the hospitalizations will continue to rise past the present record.”

To read more about this story, go to: https://www.thedailybeast.com/ozark-empire-fair-in-springfield-missouri-will-unite-covid-and-the-unvaccinated

Meanwhile, if COVID doesn’t get fairgoers, heat stroke might: https://www.ozarksfirst.com/local-news/local-news-local-news/ozark-empire-fair-forecast/

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“GOP Legislators in Missouri Oppose Vaccine Efforts as State Becomes COVID Hotspot.

Representative Bill Kidd - from the Kansas City suburbs - joked that he didn’t get a vaccine because he’s a Republican. Now he has COVID.”

“Late in this year’s legislative session, Rep. Suzie Pollock, a Republican from south-central Missouri, pushed a proposal that would allow more parents to opt out of vaccinating their children against diseases including polio, measles and mumps. Pollock insisted she was not against vaccines, but said that people should have the freedom to choose. The House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee voted 10-6 in favor of the bill.”

“Seitz, Republican, boasted in an interview that the Ozark tourist town of Branson was doing gangbuster business after a year of being mostly shut down. ‘There were 27,000 people at our July 3 celebration,’ he said, noting that he attended with U.S. Rep. Billy Long and he said, ‘I’m so glad to see there are very few chin diapers in the crowd.’ The roar was huge … we’re so happy not to be forced by government to either wear a mask or take a vaccine.’ Seitz said it wasn’t his job to keep people safe, but to keep people free.”

"Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said he will be filing a lawsuit in an effort to stop the upcoming mask mandate for St. Louis City and County. The mandate (to go into effect on Monday) is in response to the increase in COVID-19 infections around the St. Louis region and Missouri."

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Cell Phone shot of a news article photograph by KWCH Topeka.