ST. LOUIS — Nearly all of the numbers tracked by the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force decreased slightly Wednesday, but the task force leader said new admissions are still a cause for concern.
Dr. Alex Garza, Incident Commander of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, said the number of COVID-19 patients in the ICU or on ventilators is down from earlier in the pandemic.
"We know that the percentage of those admissions that need intensive care, where they need ventilators is much smaller than at the beginning of the pandemic," Dr. Garza said. "And for various reasons that I've explained before, people not coming from nursing homes, they're a younger population now and we've done better at treating covered patients. And so when we look at that picture, we say, well, we're doing OK from a health care system standpoint.
But Dr. Garza said he is still concerned about the number of patients being admitted and the number of cases in the community.
"We also know that if we continue to have virus spreading in the community, it's always going to increase the probability that we'll find more vulnerable people, that they will end up at the hospital," he said. "They will end up in intensive care. And unfortunately, some of them will end up dying. And we don't want to be there. We want to keep those case counsel low. We want to keep admissions low."
Wednesday's COVID-19 numbers from the task force are:
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 55 yesterday to 39 today. *
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 45 yesterday to 44 today. *
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased - from 258 yesterday to 263 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations decreased - from 286 yesterday to 284 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 178 yesterday to 133 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs decreased – from 70 yesterday to 69 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators increased – from 34 yesterday to 35 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 40 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 4,063.
*A delay in testing results for both August 2 and August 3 has changed some of our hospital admissions data and our rolling seven-day average. This number has been corrected.
The changes include:
- August 2, - 38 Admissions making the seven-day rolling average 41
- August 3, - 37 Admissions making the seven-day rolling average 43
- August 4, - stays the same at 55 Admissions, but that moves the rolling seven-day average to 45.
- Today’s data is correct above.
Wednesday's briefing comes as the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services reported more than 1,000 cases for the third consecutive day.
Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services reported 1,241 new COVID-19 cases and 7 new deaths Wednesday, bringing the totals in the state to 55,321 cases and 1273 deaths.
The department reported 9,024 new polymerase chain reaction — or PCR — tests Wednesday, bringing the total in the state to 730,547. On Wednesday, the state's positivity rate increased from 7.50% to 7.57%.
The department's reported increase on Wednesday was 48 cases more than Tuesday, but was 686 cases fewer than last Wednesday. Because of this week-to-week change, the seven-day moving average continued to decrease.
Although the number of new cases has decreased over the last five days when compared to last week, the state's overall positivity rate continues to increase.
St. Louis County reported 286 new cases and one new death Wednesday, bringing the totals in the county to 14,074 cases and 652 deaths. The county reported 3,289 new tests conducted, bringing the total number of tests conducted in the county to 183,624. The average positivity for the past seven days is 8.7%, according to the county's dashboard.
Statewide hospitalizations in Missouri decreased slightly Wednesday, from 891 to 882.
