ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force reported some more encouraging data on Saturday.
Both of the 7-day moving averages for new hospital admissions and total hospitalizations decreased from Friday to Saturday.
Here's a full breakdown of the new numbers:
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 19 Friday to 18 Saturday
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased – from 15 Friday to 14 Saturday
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations decreased – from 238 Friday to 237 Saturday.
- Inpatient hospitalizations increased – from 222 Friday to 227 Saturday.
- The number of patients in the ICUs decreased – from 52 Friday to 48 Saturday.
- The number of patients on ventilators decreased – from 31 Friday to 27 Saturday
- Across the task force system hospitals, 15 COVID-19 patients were discharged Friday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 2,689 since data started being tracked.
On Monday, incident commander Dr. Alex Garza also presented data showing that Black communities are at a higher risk of testing positive and ending up in the hospital due to COVID-19.
According to task force data, Dr. Garza said Black residents in the St. Louis area are about four times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 and more than twice as likely to end up in the hospital due to COVID-19.
Dr. Garza said 60% of Black patients who test positive for COVID-19 get admitted into the hospital, compared to about 40% of white patients.
"Again, this tells a story that we've said before, that COVID disproportionately affects the Black community much more than the non-Black community, and we've finally been able to generate some numbers in order to show that discrepancy," Dr. Garza said.
The task force's next live briefing will take place on Monday, June 22 at 3:30 p.m.
