CLAYTON, Mo. — About 50 protesters, not including the people driving by and honking, rallied Tuesday in support of reopening Missouri, specifically St. Louis County.
St. Louis County stands out from all other counties and cities in the state with by far the most confirmed COVID-19 cases. More than half of Missouri's cases are all in St. Louis County.
Protesters in Clayton asked rallied to ask Governor Mike Parson and local leaders to reopen businesses and so away with the current stay-at-home orders.
“At this point it doesn’t feel like its about our health anymore,” said Andrew Sayles, who helped organize the rally outside of St. Louis County’s government building. “I’m glad they erred on the side of caution, but now it's time to open things back up," he said.
On the same afternoon, the doctors with the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force acknowledged the frustrations for wanting to get back to life as it was, but stressed now is not the time to reopen the state or local economies.
“I know we are all eager to begin to something closer to normalcy, and I feel that urgency, too,” said Dr. Alex Garza, the head of the task force. “But for the sake of our economy and our community at large, we have to make sure we do this right. We don’t get a second chance of doing this right.”
Based on the task force’s COVID-19 models, the St. Louis area isn’t expected to peak until Saturday. That’s when the number of people in the hospital with the virus is expected to be at its highest.
“We’re still on the rising side of this curve,” Dr. Garza emphasized during the Tuesday afternoon update.
He said reopening too soon could mean too many people will become sick and die, leading to a second wave and another round of closures.
"The science suggests eventually we’d have to do this all over again with closing significant parts of our economy and our society,” Dr. Garza said.
“We understand the frustration of everyone," said St. Louis County Executive Sam Page. "The economic impact of the safety measures necessary to keep this virus from devastating our community. Those are real, they’re significant and we're all very concerned about the economic impact.”
On the day of this protest, St. Louis County recorded seven additional COVID-19 deaths, bringing the total to 91 in the county. There are 2,349 cases, more than anywhere in the state.
“We have to balance the loss of life and our ability to treat the virus that doesn’t have a vaccine and doesn’t have a good medical treatment," explained Page, who's a licensed doctor who spent more than 20 years in the medical field as a practicing anesthesiologist.
The latest data from the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force showed about 71,000 people in the Bi-state area could become infected with COVID-19 by the end of April. Dr. Garza previously said about 30% of those infected might not even know they have the virus — meaning they could be a risk to those around them — and many others will have mild symptoms and won’t get tested.