ST. LOUIS — Hospital admissions due to the coronavirus increased in the St. Louis area on Friday, according to the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force.
"And today we're reporting one of our highest numbers of admissions that we've seen really since around the middle of August. Now we know this isn't a local problem. Today, the state of Missouri also announced another near-record number of hospitalizations across the state. So this is very concerning," head of the task force Dr. Alex Garza said.
Dr. Garza noted the importance of wearing a face mask regularly.
"As I was out running errands today, I continue to see people either not wearing a mask at all. I was in St. Louis County and some of them wearing them below their nose. Now, granted, it was it was less than those that actually wore the mask and wore properly. However, it was still too many. So we all have to wear a mask and do it appropriately.
"And until we all do these things regularly, we will continue to see hospitalizations in case counts stubbornly high within the region. This is all the more important as we move indoors when cooler weather comes along and as well as influenza season setting upon us."
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 Oct. 9.
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased from 41 yesterday to 50 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) remained the same at 35* today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased – from 249 yesterday to 253 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 274 yesterday to 279 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations increased - from 93 yesterday to 111 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs decreased – from 80 yesterday to 69 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators decreased – from 47 yesterday to 41 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 36 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 6,664.
Statewide, the death toll from the coronavirus rose dramatically Friday when the state health department announced 136 additional deaths.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services also reported 2,008 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, and cited data showing that hospitalizations remain at near-record levels.
Health department spokeswoman Lisa Cox said all of the deaths reported Friday actually occurred before October. The state relies on reporting from local health departments, which sometimes report their deaths in batches.
Cox said 125 of the newly reported deaths that happened in September, 10 were in August and one in July.
Missouri has reported 139,164 confirmed cases and 2,395 deaths from the coronavirus since the onset of the pandemic.
Data from the state shows that 1,303 people in Missouri were hospitalized as of Thursday, the second-most for any single day. The record of 1,352 hospitalizations was Wednesday. The rise in hospitalizations is occurring largely in rural areas.
