ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force said ICU capacity remained near 90% Saturday although some COVID-19 metrics decreased.
The task force said ICUs are at 89% of their total staffed bed capacity and overall hospital capacity is at 79%.
On Friday, Dr. Alex Garza said the region is not making significant progress in the "war against the virus", and the number of people in the hospital is putting pressure on health care providers.
"The pressure the war is putting on our health care systems is dangerous for everybody in the entire region," Dr. Garza said Friday, "and every day, that pressure puts more and more people at risk."
The following data are the combined figures from the four major health systems (BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health, St. Luke’s Hospital) that are part of the task force, for December 12.
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased from 134 yesterday to 118 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 119 yesterday to 117 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased from 887 yesterday to 889 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 889 yesterday to 877 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 77 yesterday to 80 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs decreased – from 197 yesterday to 193 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators decreased – from 123 yesterday to 122 today.
- The number of COVID deaths decreased – from 20 yesterday to 18 today.
- The seven-day moving average of COVID deaths increased – from 21 yesterday to 22 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 156 COVID-19 patients were discharged to home yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 12,408.
- Today, staffed bed hospital capacity is at 79%, an average across our task force hospitals. The ICU’s are at 89% of their total staffed bed capacity.
In Missouri, the health department reported 342,347 cases and 4,503 deaths as of Saturday, a single-day increase of 3,743 cases and 22 deaths.
The state also reported 21,713 PCR tests bringing the total in the state to 3,314,288.
According to the health department's dashboard, the number of tests conducted in the state increased by about five percent in the last seven days while cases have decreased by nearly six percent in that same timeframe.
In Illinois, the health department reported 841,688 cases and 14,176 deaths as of Satruday, a single-day increase of 8,737 cases and 126 deaths.
The department also reported a single-day record of 126,888 PCR tests Saturday, bringing the total number of tests conducted to 11,713,184.
The state's positivity rate decreased from 9.4% Friday to 8.9% Saturday.
In the Metro East, the positivity rate decreased from 14.5% to 14.0%.
