Even as Kansas creeps toward its 10,000th death related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the new case rate continues to drop.

Barton, Stafford, Rice and Edwards counties all had a low weekly new case rate for the period from Jan. 21-27. That translated to two new cases in Barton County and zero in the other three.

Pawnee, Rush and Russell counties had a moderate rate of new cases, defined as 10-49 cases per 100,000 people. There were two cases each in Pawnee and Russell counties, and one in Rush County.

For the counties surrounding Barton, only Ellsworth County had a substantial new case rate (50-99 cases per 100,000 people), with four new cases.

These numbers come from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which issues a weekly update on Wednesdays but does not include the most recent five days because data is expected to be incomplete.

The KDHE does issue a weekly overview on Wednesdays but did not update its figures on Feb. 1. The last overview showed there were 2,148 new cases and 41 new deaths reported statewide between Jan. 18 and Jan. 25. This brought the total number of COVID-related deaths in Kansas to date to 9,969.