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'A momentous day' | Task force hospitals surpass 20,000 COVID-19 discharges

The task force is also looking ahead to an increase in vaccinations that could bring herd immunity by July 4th

ST. LOUIS — The lead of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force celebrated medical professionals and hospital workers Wednesday as area hospitals surpassed 20,000 discharges for COVID-19 patients since the beginning of the pandemic.

Dr. Alex Garza, the incident commander of the task force, called Wednesday a "momentous day" as the area hospitals surpassed the milestone.

"That's 20,000 people that were sick enough to be in the hospital but were able to survive this terrible virus and were able to go home to their families," Dr. Garza said.

He said that averages out to about 50 patients discharged per day, a pace that was only possible thanks to the work of hospital workers and health care professionals.

"Health care workers in our hospitals have continued to provide extraordinary care for these patients throughout that year, and even in the darkest days of the pandemic," he said. "And I think you will join me by saying we will never be able to repay them for the dedication and the selflessness they've shown."

In addition to the positivity surrounding the milestone reached Wednesday, Dr. Garza said there are reasons to be positive about the future as well, including vaccination events scheduled in our area for the near future.

RELATED: 25,000 doses to be administered at mass vaccine events around St. Louis area

With the planned increase in vaccination events in the area, the task force has moved up its best guess for when the region will reach herd immunity. The new update shows the St. Louis area could reach the 75% vaccination mark in early July if the region continues on the current pace of about 69,000 doses per week.

"The idea of having a near-normal July 4th holiday is really getting closer to reality," Dr. Garza said.

He added that although the state has moved into vaccine Phase 1B-Tier 3, demand still outweighs supply, and finding an appointment could still be challenging for those who were previously eligible and those just joining the eligibility group.

The task force will continue to prioritize people in earlier vaccine tiers even as the state moves ahead with vaccine eligibility.

Dr. Garza said the effects of the vaccine are already being seen in task force hospitals. Over the past few weeks, hospitalizations have decreased. He said the type of person ending up in the hospital has also changed.

"We do believe that the percentage of people coming from places like long-term care facilities and nursing homes has come down quite dramatically," Dr. Garza said. " And when I did a brief look at our data, so data from all the systems last week, I did see that there were less admissions coming from those older age groups."

Older people are at a much higher risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19, and COVID-19 deaths in the task force hospitals are at the lowest point since the task force started reporting that information in October.

While the mass vaccination events bring a wave of new doses to the area, Dr. Garza said they could also bring another potential bottleneck: limited volunteers.

Dr. Garza said many of the health departments will need volunteers with medical experience to administer shots. For more information about becoming a volunteer, a post on the Gateway Volunteer Network Facebook page has links to all the places to volunteer.

Although there were plenty of reasons for optimism Wednesday, some of the underlying numbers tracked by the task force started to tick up in the last week.

Dr. Garza said public health departments have noticed a small uptick in cases recently, which he said is likely due to more transmissible variants in the region and loosening of coronavirus restrictions. He said a similar change has been noticed across the country as well.

As we reach a full year since the pandemic began, Dr. Garza also took time to encourage people to resume routine medical visits like screenings and check-ups. He showed data from a study that said fewer patients were seeking preventative care during the pandemic, which led to missed opportunities to catch things that are easier to treat in earlier stages, like cancer.

"So, if you've been putting off, or your loved one has been putting off getting any of this regular care or going to see your doctor, please do encourage them as well as schedule yourself to get these appointments done," Dr. Garza said.

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 March 17.

  • New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased - from 25 yesterday to 31** today
  • The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 37* yesterday to 36 today. 
  • The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased - from 227 yesterday to 231 today.
  • Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations increased - from 227 yesterday to 246 today. 
  • Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 36 yesterday to 21 today.
  • The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs decreased – from 68 yesterday to 60 today.
  • The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators decreased – from 44 yesterday to 34 today.
  • The number of COVID deaths increased – from 1 yesterday to 2 today.
  • The seven-day moving average of COVID deaths decreased – from 3 yesterday to 2 today.
  • Across the system hospitals, 25** patients have been discharged, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 20,003.
  • Today, staffed bed hospital capacity is at 88%**, an average across our task force hospitals. The ICUs are at 86%** of their total staffed bed capacity.

**Due to a computer upgrade, some data was unavailable today from one of the health systems. We will update that data when it becomes available.

*Due to a delay in test results, some of the hospital admissions data has changed. Those changes are reflected below:

Admissions Seven-Day Average

3/12 — 41 Admissions, Seven-day average: 38

3/13 — 40 Admissions, Seven-day average: 37

3/14 — 39 Admissions, Seven-day average: 37

3/15 — 30 Admissions, Seven-day average: 38

3/16 — 27 Admissions, Seven-day average: 37

3/17 — 31 Admissions, Seven-day average: 36

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