ST. LOUIS — After seeing more encouraging data this week, the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, said the area is experiencing a setback.
"There is concerning data coming out of our hospital systems," the task force incident commander Dr. Alex Garza said during a briefing Friday. "However, as I've said before. it's not about those one-day swings or spikes. It's what our trends look like, what that seven-day moving average looks like.
"We're hopeful that today's data is not a sign of a new surge in cases, but a one-day blip and that we'll get back to our decreasing numbers."
The task force reported 51 hospital admissions (with a two-day lag in data). Earlier in the week, the numbers hovered in the 30s -- an increase Garza called "depressing."
Garza said the one-day spike increased the seven-day average to 41, above the "red line" of concern.
"We need to do everything that we can to get that number down below that 40 mark, but to get even lower than that so that we're not seeing as many people in our hospitals," Garza said.
He noted that the state is seeing a spike in cases and the hospital data lags behind.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services reported 1,473 new cases COVID-19 Friday, bringing the cumulative total to 65,270 cases. The state also reported 10 new deaths for a total of 1,335.
In addition, there have been 13,512 new tests and the state's positivity rate is up to 7.91% from 7.86%.
The task force provided the following data:
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased – from 37* yesterday to 51 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased – from 39* yesterday to 41 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased – from 274 yesterday to 276 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations increased - from 267 yesterday to 291 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 159 yesterday to 131 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs increased – from 76 yesterday to 81 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators decreased – from 47 yesterday to 46 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 30 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 4,433.