ST. LOUIS — On Monday, the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force reported a slight decrease in hospital admissions in the St. Louis area.
However, there's a surge in deaths related to COVID-19, the task force reported.
"And we've been able to see more than 11,000 people go home since the whole pandemic started. But as health care professionals, we have also learned that we can never underestimate the deadly ability of this virus as well. It can and it does kill people," Dr. Alexander Garza - head of the task force - said.
Dr. Garza said the area is starting to see a disturbing trend.
"Each day we saw around seven COVID-19 patients in our systems that would lose their lives to this virus. Seven people every day was too many deaths. But in just a couple of months, that number has effectively tripled. Right now, every day we're seeing the virus kill approximately 20 patients who have been hospitalized," Dr. Garza said.
He said the surge is consistent with the increase in number of patients hospitalized since October.
"That is 20 people a day who won't be going back home to their loved ones. Now, that surge in deaths is completely consistent with the increase in the number of patients hospitalized since October. We have effectively tripled the number of patients. So the increase in the number of deaths isn't too unexpected, but it's troubling nonetheless," he added.
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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 Dec. 7.
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased from 109 yesterday to 81 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased - from 117 yesterday to 113 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations decreased from 912 yesterday to 903 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 865 yesterday to 894 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 74 yesterday to 80 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs decreased – from 194 yesterday to 187 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators increased – from 115 yesterday to 117 today.
- The number of COVID deaths increased – from 21 yesterday to 24 today.
- The seven-day moving average of COVID deaths increased – from 20 yesterday to 21 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 64 COVID-19 patients were discharged to home yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 11,668.