ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force gave another update on the fight against COVID-19 in the St. Louis area on Friday.
You can watch the entire briefing from incident commander Dr. Alex Garza by clicking here, or watching the embedded player in this story.
On Friday, the task force reported another increase in key COVID-19 statistics across task force hospitals. Here are the new numbers:
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased – from 35 yesterday to 36 Friday. *
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased – from 33 yesterday to 34 Friday.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased from 196 yesterday to 201 Friday. *
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations increased - from 220 yesterday to 229 Friday.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 128 yesterday to 131 Friday.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs decreased – from 58 yesterday to 55 Friday.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators stayed the same at 24 Friday.
- Across the system hospitals, 50 COVID-19 patients were discharged Thursday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 3,337.
*These numbers have been updated to reflect the true number of daily admissions. There was a delay in reporting some test results leading to the increase in reported hospital admissions. This, in turn, affected the seven-day moving average of admissions.
As the moving average continue to increase in the St. Louis area, Dr. Garza said the trend can be stopped.
“We can change this. We can turn things around," Dr. Garza said. "We can make a difference and reverse this concerning trend.”
Dr. Garza again stressed the importance of social distancing, wearing a mask and washing hands to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
On Thursday, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services reported 708 new cases in the state, bringing the total to 31,379 cases. The state also reported 11 new deaths Thursday, the fifth consecutive day the number of deaths increased by at least 10.
The DHSS reported 11,354 new tests Thursday, bringing the total number of tests conducted to 529,301. The state's positivity rate increased slightly Thursday, from 5.74% on Wednesday to 5.75% on Thursday.
St. Louis County reported a single-day record for new COVID-19 cases for the second time in three days on Thursday. The county health department reported 261 newly confirmed cases, bringing the county's total to 8,561. Thursday's single-day increase topped the previous mark of 243 set on Tuesday.
