ST. LOUIS — Dr. Alex Garza and the St. Louis Pandemic Task Force gave a pre-Christmas update on Wednesday, urging continued vigilance during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
On Wednesday, Dr. Garza shared a sobering statistic.
"Today we're reporting 31 new daily COVID deaths, the highest daily number that we have reported since we began sharing this data," Dr. Garza said.
He also said that hospitals are still in a precarious position when it comes to new admissions.
"The number of admissions and number of total admissions whether we go up or down a few per day is still dangerously high," Dr. Garza said.
Dr. Garza warned people of the continued need for caution, especially with the holidays upon us.
"We are still very much in crisis mode. Wars don't stop for the holidays and ours is no different," Dr. Garza said when talking about healthcare workers still fighting the virus.
"Please stay safe as you celebrate this Christmas holiday. Celebrate at home, and people you live with. Do everything you can to keep people you love from ending up in the hospital," Dr. Garza said.
Here are the new numbers from the task force for Wednesday:
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased from 118 yesterday to 131 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) remained the same today at 117*.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations decreased - from 872 yesterday to 867 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 885 yesterday to 871 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 77 yesterday to 75 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs decreased – from 185 yesterday to 182 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators decreased – from 115 to 114 today.
- The number of COVID deaths increased – from 18 yesterday to 31 today.
- The seven-day moving average of COVID deaths increased – from 17 yesterday to 18 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 140 COVID-19 patients were discharged to home yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 13,715.
Wednesday, staffed bed hospital capacity is at 82%, an average across our task force hospitals. The ICU’s are at 88% of their total staffed bed capacity.
You can watch the entire task force press conference from Wednesday by clicking here.