ST. LOUIS — The hospital admissions related to COVID-19 are up in the St. Louis area, according to the St. Louis Metropolitan Task Force.
"So our hospital admissions are back up to near 40, which of course, is always concerning," Dr. Garza said during the Friday briefing.
"What we're seeing is there's different patterns to our admissions now. And so as we've seen throughout the pandemic, where there is a different patient population that's testing positive, we're now seeing our admission patterns come from different areas where initially we did not see any."
"We've been talking about increasing cases coming from outside of the urban areas. And we think that's starting to now be reflected in our admissions data, which is what makes it a little bit tough to get that number down. If we're seeing numbers come down in the more urban areas," Dr. Garza said.
New confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been fluctuating this week in the St. Louis area.
On Thursday, 728 new cases were reported, compared to 410 new cases Wednesday.
The 7-day running average has been mostly unchanged since late-August.
It's now at 645 cases per day.
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 Sept. 25.
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased from 43* yesterday to 36 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) remained the same at 33 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations remained the same at 266 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 270 yesterday to 267 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased - from 145 yesterday to 143 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs decreased – from 77 yesterday to 76 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators increased- from 47 yesterday to 48 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 54 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 6,119.
*Thursday’s hospital admission data changed from 38 to 43 and did not increase the seven-day moving average.