Morning Medical Update Monday 7-19-21

Another sharp rise in the numbers of COVID-19 patients over the weekend at The University of Kansas Health System. 38 patients with the active virus are being treated, up from 32 on Friday. 13 of those patients are in the ICU, up from 12 Friday. Five of those patients are on ventilators, up from three Friday. 16 other patients are still hospitalized because of COVID-19 but are out of the acute infection phase, up from 10 Friday. That’s a total of 54 patients, a big jump from 42 on Friday. HaysMed has five active patients, up from four Friday.

On today’s Morning Medical Update, Chiefs training camp in St. Joseph is just around the corner. The head team orthopedic surgeon, our own Dr. Paul Schroeppel, joined us to discuss how the camp will work this year. He also shared a great patient story involving a student athlete.

Before discussing the Chiefs, the panel addressed a reporter question about whether we might have to return to mask mandates because of the rising numbers. Lance Williamson is Infection Prevention and Control Nurse Supervisor at The University of Kansas Health System and is filling in for Dr. Hawkinson. He said Los Angeles became one of the first big cities over the weekend to reimplement mask mandates and says if we see things become less safe, even for fully vaccinated people, that may happen here as well. He also discussed the breaking news about an alternate on the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team who tested positive on the eve of the Summer Olympic Games in Japan.

Dr. Paul Schroeppel may be best known to Chiefs fans as the man who popped Patrick Mahomes’ knee back into place after his injury during a Thursday night game in Denver. He says while the Olympic athlete’s positive test is an isolated case, it will be nearly impossible to go through the Olympics without any others, despite the most stringent precautions. The same is true for the Chiefs, who are about to begin training camp in St. Joseph under strict COVID protocols put in place by NFL medical officials. For the fans, training camp will be a little different as there will be no direct interaction with players. While the NFL cannot require players and staff to be vaccinated, they are highly encouraging it, and Schroeppel says the Chiefs are among the most compliant in the league. He says the plan is for Arrowhead to be full with fans, but that could change between now and opening day. He also had advice for parents of student athletes preparing now for fall sports, stressing the importance of proper sleep, diet and hydration. We were introduced to Blue Valley High School football player Michael Solomon, who suffered a season-ending collarbone fracture last year. Dr. Schroeppel repaired the damage, and Solomon was able to participate in wrestling by February and is ready for football practice now. Schroeppel credits athletic trainers from the Sports Medicine and Performance Center, assigned to every team in several area school districts, for helping Solomon, and many other athletes, with their recoveries. He stressed the importance of following the restrictions for the first few months of healing and then a rigorous rehab program in order for athletes to get back to their sport. He highly encourages all student athletes 12 and older to get vaccinated as soon as possible. He says the longer people continue to go unvaccinated, the longer we’ll have these spikes.

Lance Williamson discussed whether kids under 12, who are not yet eligible for vaccination, will be required to wear masks in the classroom this fall. He also said it’s unknown if somebody who had COVID-19 in May of 2020 has much natural immune response left, and a vaccination will give you the most protection. He reported the number of hospital deaths from COVID-19 is rising again after dropping off quite a bit in May and June. He added that the health system doesn’t see many breakthrough infections. Nationally he says there have been about 6,000, which is extremely small compared to the total number of infections, and almost all are from the Delta variant. His advice for the community is to be agile with numbers changing every day, don’t be afraid to put on a mask inside or outside, and get vaccinated as soon as possible.