ST. LOUIS — Missouri surpassed 300,000 COVID-19 cases Tuesday, reaching the milestone one year after the first known patient developed symptoms in China.
The state reported a cumulative total of 302,691 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on its dashboard Tuesday, a single-day increase of 2,929 cases.
The state also reported 177 new COVID-19-related deaths for a cumulative total of 4,006. Of those 177 new deaths, 138 were recently linked to COVID-19 through the state's weekly check of death certificates, which tends to result in a sharp increase in deaths reported on Tuesdays. Twenty-five of the 138 deaths occurred in October and 113 were in November.
The state's seven-day positivity rate is at 20.5%, up from Monday's rate of 20%.
St. Louis area hospitals reported another record of COVID-19 hospitalizations Tuesday. Staffed bed capacity is at 82% and ICUs are at 90% of their total staffed bed capacity, according to the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force.
If the numbers continue in this direction, hospitals in the area will reach the maximum COVID-19 inpatient capacity on or around Dec. 8, according to Dr. Alex Garza, the head of the task force.
"And if the numbers don't go down very soon, we may not be able to keep up. We'll continue to have to look for other places to treat patients outside of our region," Garza said during a briefing Monday.
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 Dec. 1.
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased from 107 yesterday to 118 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased - from 116 yesterday to 118 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased – from 909 yesterday to 919 today, a new seven-day moving average record.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 961 yesterday to 962 today, a new hospital admissions record.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 96 yesterday to 99 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs increased – from 202 yesterday to 203 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators remained the same at 123 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 131 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 10,950.