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COVID-19 cases trending down in St. Louis area but still at dangerous levels, task force says

Nearly all the counties in the St. Louis metropolitan area reported fewer COVID-19 cases when compared to the previous week, Dr. Garza said

ST. LOUIS — The number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the St. Louis area are starting to slowly come down, but the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force said both figures remain at dangerous levels as the end of the year approaches.

Dr. Alex Garza, the incident commander of the task force, said modeling data that was updated on Thursday shows a slow decrease in cases and hospitalizations in the area since numbers spiked in the middle of November.

Dr. Garza said the area’s reproductive rate was below one, meaning the region is slowing the spread of the virus. Nearly all the counties in the St. Louis metropolitan area reported fewer COVID-19 cases when compared to the previous week, Dr. Garza said.

Although the numbers are improving, Dr. Garza said there is still work to be done.

“So, the situation here, although I’ve been saying this is good news for most of this briefing, we’re still at a really high level,” Dr. Garza said, “and so until we can bring those number of admissions down even further and those hospital census numbers down even further, we are still going to be in a very difficult time. And we still have to see whether we are going to see an increase in cases from the Christmas holiday.”

On Monday, the ICU capacity at task force hospitals remained at 87% for the second consecutive day, while single-day admissions and hospitalizations increased.

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 28. 

  • New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased from 64 yesterday to 94 today.
  • The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 98 yesterday to 97 today.
  • The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations decreased - from 844 yesterday to 842 today.
  • Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 805 yesterday to 865 today.
  • Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 74 yesterday to 86 today.
  • The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs decreased – from 176 yesterday to 173 today.
  • The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators decreased – from 116 to 106 today.
  • The number of COVID deaths increased – from 16 yesterday to 14 today.
  • The seven-day moving average of COVID deaths decreased – from 19 yesterday to 18 today.
  • Across the system hospitals, 58 COVID-19 patients were discharged to home yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 14,203. 
  • Today, staffed bed hospital capacity is at 79%, an average across our task force hospitals. The ICU’s are at 87% of their total staffed bed capacity.

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