JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, the eighth consecutive day of more than 1,000 new cases in the state.
The DHSS reported a total of 44,823 COVID-19 cases and 1,213 deaths as of Tuesday, an increase of 1,773 cases and 12 deaths in the last 24 hours.
Tuesday's increase in new cases was more than 500 higher than the increase on Monday and the increase reported last Tuesday.
The state reported 11,020 new polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests in the last 24 hours, bringing the state's total to 652,924. PCR tests are the swab tests that look for active infection in people.
The state's positivity rate increased for the seventh consecutive day Monday, from 6.71% to 6.86%.
St. Louis County reported 88 new cases Tuesday, but a message on the county website said that number reflects incomplete data.
"St. Louis County’s COVID-19 website, stlcorona.com, lists the number of new cases reported each day. Unfortunately, today’s reported figure of 88 new cases reflects incomplete data. The St. Louis County Department of Public Health has identified errors in timeliness and accuracy of the data it received from private urgent care companies that administer tests in the county. As an example, one urgent care company recently reported 17,700 test results in two batches over a three-day period, raising concerns about possible duplications and other problems with the data. DPH is reviewing those test results and will post them after it confirms the accuracy of the data reported. Until then, DPH will not include that data in reports.
"The department will update the data on stlcorona.com as soon as it has confirmed the accuracy of the data and correcting errors. We will continue to use seven-day averages for monitoring trends."
The number of new COVID-19 hospital admissions in the St. Louis Area hit 40 on Tuesday, returning to the high numbers reported last week.
Below are the numbers reported by the task force Tuesday.
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased – from 25 yesterday to 40 today. *
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased – from 38 yesterday to 39 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations decreased – from 245 yesterday to 244 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations decreased - from 253 yesterday to 243 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 94 yesterday to 98 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs increased, from 54 yesterday to 59 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators remained the same at 28 for the fourth day in a row.
- Across the system hospitals, 48 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 3,746.
*These numbers have been updated to reflect the true number of daily admissions. There was a delay in reporting some test results leading to the increase in reported hospital admissions. This, in turn, affected the seven-day moving average of admissions.
Statewide hospitalization data has not been updated on the DHSS dashboard for more than a week. A note from the Missouri DHSS said the delay is due to a change in the way hospital data is reported nationwide.
