ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Metropolitan Task Force said previous days of new COVID-19 admissions were higher than previously reported.
“As we have done in the past, we update our numbers as they become available,” Dr. Alex Garza, Incident Commander of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, said in a press release. “What this means is we are even worse off than we believed. The adjusted numbers are alarming."
On Saturday, the task force updated the number of new admissions for Nov. 18, 19 and 20, increasing each by at least 10 admissions.
- November 18 admissions increased from 130 to 140
- November 19 admissions increased from 130 to 147
- November 20 admissions increased from 131 to 147
The task force reported 138 new admissions for Saturday, bringing the seven-day average to a record 134.
"With these numbers, more deaths will follow, our health care professionals will become more exhausted and our capacity will continue to dwindle," Dr. Garza said in the statement. "The time to act is now.”
The full numbers update from the task force is as follows:
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased from 147* to 138 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased – from 132* to 134, a new seven-day moving average record.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased – from 807 yesterday to 828 today, a new seven-day moving average record.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 881 yesterday to 859 today.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 148 yesterday to 121 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs increased – from 163 yesterday to 168 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators increased – from 88 yesterday to 93 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 141 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 9,779.
- Today, 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.
In Missouri, the state's health department reported 267,312 cases and 3,555 deaths as of Saturday, an increase of 4,876 cases and 18 deaths in the last day.
The state's seven-day average positivity was 21.7% Saturday, down from 22.6 yesterday.
According to the department's dashboard, the state reported about 23% fewer cases in the last seven days when compared to the previous seven days. The dashboard also said testing decreased by about 8% over that same time.
In Illinois, the department of public health reported 646,286 cases and 11,430 deaths as of Saturday, a single-day increase of 11,891 cases and 126 deaths.
The state also reported 120,284 new tests Saturday, a single-day record that brought the total number of tests conducted to 9,708,982.
The state's seven-day positivity was 11.5% Saturday, the same as the previous day.
The seven-day average positivity rate reported for the Metro East was 15.5%, down from 16.1% reported the previous day. The region positivity rate is delayed by 72 hours to improve accuracy, so the number reported Saturday represents the seven-day average on Nov. 18.
