TOPEKA — Cases of COVID-19 are increasing in 48 states, although emergency department visits are still low, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Kansas, which the CDC ranks as “likely growing” in its number of COVID-19 infections, the number of cases seen in the emergency department was less than 0.1% of all visits for the week ending Aug. 22, said Jill Bronaugh, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
“COVID-19 is not a reportable condition in Kansas, which means every case that is diagnosed or every positive test does NOT come to KDHE,” Bronaugh said in an email to Kansas Reflector. “Instead, we rely on monitoring of emergency department data to give us a sense of COVID-19 trends.”
A CDC map shows that the areas seeing more COVID-19 in Kansas are in the northeast of the state, in counties around Topeka and Kansas City, and in the counties surrounding Wichita.
CDC wastewater monitoring updated Thursday also shows low levels of COVID-19 virus in Kansas.
Kansas Reflector screen capture of U.S. Centers for Disease Control map
This story previously appeared on the Kansas Reflector.
Copyright 2026 High Plains Public Radio.
