Vaccination rates continue to rise in Geary County

The Junction City Union, Kan.
·2 min read

Sep. 20—There are currently 76 known active cases of COVID-19 in Geary County, according to the Geary County Health Department.

One new case of the delta variant have been identified by the health department to bring the total to 133 but a total of 3 new cases of COVID-19 were identified last week, much smaller than the week before.

The health department also listed a total of 24 new recoveries from the virus.

The health department's unofficial death count rose stayed unchanged from last week at 36.

There have been a total of 20 known breakthrough cases of COVID-19 — cases where someone who was vaccinated contracted the virus nonetheless — in Geary County which is unchanged from last week.

The health department lists the county as having experienced 2399 cases of COVID-19 and 2298 recoveries in total since the virus first arrived in the community in spring 2020.

The Kansas Department of Health and the Environment lists the community as having had more cases of the virus than the health department does.

The KDHE lists Geary County as having had a total of 4,490 cases of the virus since the pandemic began.

This difference of 2,091 is accounted for by numbers from the Geary County side of Fort Riley according to the health department. Fort Riley does not report its numbers directly to the health department, but does report its numbers to the KDHE.

While Geary County lags behind many other Kansas counties in terms of vaccination, the number of Geary County residents that have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine has gone up.

The KDHE now lists 434.5 per 1,000 people aged 12 and above have had at least one dose of the vaccine in Geary County — a total of about 10,453.

According to the KDHE, 8,634 people are fully-vaccinated against the virus in Geary County — 358.9 per 1,000 people.

Geary Community Hospital routinely releases its COVID-19-related numbers to the public.

According to the most recent update from the hospital, there are two COVID-19 patients in the ICU and they are both currently on a ventilator. There are three COVID-19 patients hospitalized at GCH at this time, and all three are unvaccinated.

In total, GCH is serving 16 patients at this time, including those who are there for COVID-19-related treatments and those who are in the hospital for other reasons.