Kansas hospital runs out of ventilators as virus cases soar

EMPORIA, Kan. (AP) – A hospital in eastern Kansas ran out of ventilators Friday as the state continued to report a surge in COVID-19 cases.

The Lyons County Board declared a local emergency Friday after the Newman Regional Health hospital in Emporia ran short of ventilators.

That declaration will help the hospital receive two additional ventilators from the state. The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Kansas soared over the past two weeks from 1,109.29 new cases per day on Dec. 24 to 6,543.43 new cases per day on Friday.

In the Kansas City area, officials at the University of Kansas Hospital said they were scrambling to deal with staff shortages as the number of COVID-19 patients they were treating jumped.