ST. LOUIS — Cars pull up to the north St. Louis County recreational complex Tuesday morning for the rollout of a new strategy.
They are handing out PCR tests that people can take with them, administer on their own in their cars or homes, and bring back to one of the county's three health centers for analysis. They handed out more than 200 before noon.
A former nurse, Mary Conley has had COVID before and says she knows the importance of certainty as she picks up one of the saliva kits.
"We need to know about our health. Not guess, not wonder, but know," she said.
Data from the kits are used to give health leaders a full grasp of our current condition, which is showing tremendous improvement.
"I think the trend is so unmistakably in the right direction," Dr. Clay Dunagan, of the St. Louis Metropolitan Task Force said.
Chief Clinical Officer at BJC HealthCare, Dunagan said rates falling and projection modeling shows it should continue to drop until it reaches a post-omicron valley in late February or early March.
"Almost everyone's had more than one dose of vaccine or they've had a COVID, and many people have had both," Dunagan said. "So I think we are at a place where herd immunity will help us in the short run. The real question will be: do new variants arise that escaped that immunologic memory? And only time will tell."
Dunagan says it important to maintain the same strategies against COVID as we continue a downward trajectory, adding one caveat: we haven't seen a lot of the BA. 2 variant in our region, a descendant of the omicron strain, that could slow down our progress.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force released the following updated data slides, combining figures from the five major health systems (BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health, St. Luke’s Hospital, VA St. Louis), who are part of the task force.
The data for February 8, 2022.
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased – from 78 Monday to 100 Tuesday.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 96 Monday to 95 Tuesday.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations decreased – from 774 Monday to 746 Tuesday.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 723 Monday to 681 Tuesday.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 29 Monday to 23 Tuesday.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICU decreased – from 146 Monday to 144 Tuesday.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators decreased – from 97 to 91 Tuesday.
- 14 COVID deaths are being reported Tuesday.
- The seven-day moving average of COVID remained the same at 13 Tuesday.
- Across the system hospitals, 122 patients were discharged Monday bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 39,672.
- Of the 626 hospitalized COVID patients in the three reporting Task Force hospital systems Tuesday – 255 are fully vaccinated. That’s 41% of the patient population.
- There are 21 COVID positive children who are 0-11 years of age in Task Force hospitals.
- There are 6 COVID positive children who are 12-18 years of age in Task Force hospitals.
- There are 6 COVID positive children who are 0-11 years of age and in the ICU.
- There are 0 COVID positive children who are 12-18 years of age and in the ICU.
- Our staffed bed hospital capacity is at 87% an average across our task force hospitals. The ICUs are at 76% of their total staffed bed capacity.