ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force held its usual briefing Monday afternoon to update the public on COVID-19 related numbers, but this briefing looked a bit different.
Dr. Alex Garza, the head of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, was joined by several others - doctors, business owners and those who have lost a loved one to the virus.
This comes as Dr. Garza said the task force is troubled by recent hospital trends when it comes to COVID-19.
"For months now, I've stood here and talked about why it's important to keep COVID-19 under control, how it could overwhelm our health care systems, exhaust our health care workers, impact our schools, sports and the economy, and take the lives of those we love. It's changed our lives in a lot of ways," Dr. Garza said.
"So the reason why I'm here today is that we're at an inflection point. If we continue down the path we're on right now, if we don't start listening to science and wear masks and stop gathering in large crowds, things could potentially get much worse."
Dr. Garza reminded people the virus affects everyone - regardless of age.
"And just because it doesn't affect some age groups as much as others doesn't mean it isn't important. A life lost is a life lost. No matter if you're 65 or you're 25. And so we need to stop that line of thinking right now," he said.
A doctor and nurse spoke at the briefing about the dwindling resource supply and how many hospitals are at or near capacity on beds. They said it might be possible to free up bed space by putting a hold on elective procedures, which is something that was done at the beginning of the pandemic.
Jennifer Duffy spoke after she lost her mom to the virus in September.
"It's devastatingly quick in 14 days she went from being perfectly healthy to gone. we weren't able to be with her she fought for days in the ICU and I thank all the nurses who were her family for her because we could not be," Duffy emotionally said during the briefing.
"What's harder than the grief of losing her is the state of this world and the disgust that I feel when I see the values she brought us up with of love, respect and kindness not apparent in the people around us. And I don't understand why it is so hard to sacrifice to wear a mask if it can save somebody like my mother," she added.
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. 26.
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 52* yesterday to 46 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased from 51 yesterday to 52 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased – from 353 yesterday to 360 today.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 346 yesterday to 386 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 86 yesterday to 72 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs decreased – from 101 yesterday to 98 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators increased – from 49 yesterday to 50 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 24 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 7,474.
