ST. LOUIS — Hospital admissions due to COVID-19 in the St. Louis area have gone down after a spike earlier in the week, the St. Louis Pandemic Task Force said during a briefing on Friday afternoon.
“As for what caused this spike, it's still a little bit unclear. There's not one single event that led to this. There wasn't like outbreak in a nursing home or something like that. And we're still digging into the data to see if there's a common thread that contributed to the large number,” Dr. Garza, head of the task force, said.
New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 40 Thursday to 33 Friday.
Dr. Garza shared research from St. Louis University's College for Public Health and Social Justice.
A few weeks ago, Dr. Garza shared some preliminary data from the research which looked at how mandatory masking policies affect different ZIP codes and the amount of COVID-19 cases in those ZIP codes.
“And if you remember during that presentation, masking had a definitive effect on decreasing the number of cases in those ZIP codes. So, the researchers went back and then began to look at counties on their latest on their latest research,” Dr. Garza said.
The research compares mask wearing ordinances and their association to COVID-19 case growth across the St. Louis area, Dr. Garza said.
“What they found is that a mandatory mask policy significantly stunts the growth of COVID-19 cases over time. So, in those first three weeks after that mask policy was in place at the beginning of July, they found that there was a 32% less case growth when a mask policy was implemented, which is considerable,” Dr. Garza said.
Below are the slides provided by the St. Louis pandemic task force from the research
You can watch the full briefing below or click here
RELATED: Task force revises new admissions from Wednesday, Missouri reports 1,512 new COVID-19 cases
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 Aug. 28.
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 40* yesterday to 33 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) remained the same at 44 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased – from 276 yesterday to 283 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 303 yesterday to 300 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 116 yesterday to 89 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs increased – from 89 yesterday to 92 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators increased – increased from 45 yesterday to 53 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 47 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 5,017.
Friday, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services reported 1,418 new cases of COVID-19 for a cumulative total of 80,992 cases. The state also reported 14 COVID-19-related deaths, bringing the total to 1,464.
The department says the seven-day average positivity is 8.48% up from 8.44%.
There are currently 1,007 people being treated in hospitals across the state.
