ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Pandemic Task Force gave its final briefing of 2020 on Wednesday, ahead of the new year.
Dr. Alex Garza provided new numbers and metrics about the region's fight against the virus and ICU nurse Natalie Crawford gave a personal insight into just how hard some patients are fighting to stay alive while battling COVID-19.
To watch the entire briefing you can click here.
Dr. Garza urged once again to be vigilant as the New Year's holiday approaches, cautioning people not to go out to crowded areas to celebrate, or to host a crowded gathering at home.
“This pandemic is not going to improve just because we’re entering the new year," Garza said.
The task force reported 25 new COVID-related deaths on Wednesday, which is among the highest single-day death totals since the task force data started becoming available.
Here are all of the new task force numbers for Wednesday.
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased from 113* yesterday to 98 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 107 yesterday to 102 today*.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations decreased - from 838 yesterday to 832 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 856 yesterday to 830 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 87 yesterday to 70 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs increased – from 172 yesterday to 176 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators increased – from 107 to 112 today.
- The number of COVID deaths increased – from 11 yesterday to 25 today.
- The seven-day moving average of COVID deaths decreased – from 18 yesterday to 17 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 140 COVID-19 patients were discharged to home yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 14,462.
Wednesday, staffed bed hospital capacity is at 84%, an average across our task force hospitals. The ICU’s are at 90% of their total staffed bed capacity.
At the end of his briefing, Dr. Garza once again addressed questions comparing COVID-19 to influenza, sharing multiple data points that show the impact of the two viruses is "incomparable".
