ST. LOUIS — Missouri and Illinois both set coronavirus records Saturday as hospitalization numbers remained high in the St. Louis area.
Missouri recorded nearly 3,000 new cases and a record high for seven-day average positivity rate Saturday while Illinois reported more than 7,000 new cases for the first time.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force reported 410 fewer COVID-19 hospitalizations Saturday, which was 12 fewer than Friday but 54 more than last Saturday. The seven-day average increased from 389 to 397, the highest reported by the task force since May 15.
During the task force's Friday briefing, Dr. Alex Garza — the incident commander of the task force — said St. Louis area hospitals are nearing 90% capacity as COVID-19 cases rise. These numbers differ slightly from the numbers reported for the region by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services dashboard.
Dr. Garza said the difference is because the state health department uses the number of beds possible inside the facility while the task force is using the number of beds they can have staffed for treatment.
"The numbers that we use is based off the staffing capacity for those beds," Dr. Garza said. "So, as I mentioned on Monday, it doesn't really matter if we have 100 beds. If I only have staff for 10, then — realistically — I only have 10 beds."
He said they are working with the state to update the capacity numbers to more accurately reflect the reality of hospital capacity.
The full update from the task force is as follows:
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 68* yesterday to 57 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased from 59 yesterday to 58 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased – from 389 yesterday to 397 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 422 yesterday to 410 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 93 yesterday to 73 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs decreased – from 104 yesterday to 103 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators decreased – from 57 yesterday to 56 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 70 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 7,784.
*The hospital admissions data for Friday increased from 65 to 68, but did not change the seven-day moving.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported a record number of new cases for the third consecutive day Saturday.
The department reported a total of 410,300 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 9,757 deaths as of Saturday, a single-day increase of 7,899 cases and 46 deaths.
The department also reported 92,636 new tests in the last 24 hours, bringing the state's total to 7,729,845.
The seven-day average positivity rate in the state increased from 7.3% to 7.5% Saturday.
The Metro East positivity rate reported Saturday was 8.7%, the same as Friday.
In Missouri, the health department reported 183,186 cases and 3,024 deaths as of Saturday, a single-day increase of 2,986 cases and 99 deaths.
Saturday was the third consecutive day of more than 2,500 new cases in the state. Before Thursday, the state had only reported more than 2,500 cases twice, one of which the department said was due to a data entry error.
According to the department's dashboard, testing in the state over the last seven days was down 11.8% when compared to the previous seven days while cases went up by 16.4% over that same time. As a result, the state reported its highest seven-day average positivity rate Saturday, 13.9%. The positivity rate is calculated using the CDC method, which takes the total number of positive PCR tests divided by the total number of PCR tests administered.
