UG Flag Memorial Commemorates 2nd Anniversary of 1st COVID Fatality

Published on March 11, 2022

More Than 480 Lives Lost and Families Directly Impacted 

March 11, 2022 marks the two-year anniversary of the first Wyandotte County COVID-19 fatality. To commemorate this two-year anniversary the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, KS unveiled a flag memorial on the lawn of Memorial Hall today.

Some facts about the memorial:

• Location: Unified Government Memorial Hall, 600 N. 7^th Street, Kansas City, KS 66101
• Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 480 Wyandotte County residents have lost their lives due to the virus.
• The flag memorial consists of flags of three different colors. Each color symbolizes the number of COVID-19 deaths by year since the beginning of the pandemic.

COVID-19 Deaths in Wyandotte County by Year

The flags will be on display until Friday, March 25, 2022.

Other key statistics about the impact of COVID-19 in Wyandotte County:

• The highest number of COVID fatalities in Wyandotte County occurred in April, 2020, with 52 deaths, and January, 2022, in which 51 members of the community died.
  
  
• The Unified Government Public Health Department (UGPHD) has begun tracking community impact as measured by a statistic called “Years of Potential Life Lost” or YPLL. YPLL estimates how many more years a person might have lived and contributed to the community if they had not died prematurely due to a particular cause of death. As of 3/9/2022, the calculated YPLL for Wyandotte County is 4,212 years of potential life lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic.