ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force reported steady COVID-19 numbers on Saturday.
Here's a breakdown of the latest numbers from the task force:
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased – from 11 Friday to 16 Saturday.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) stayed the same at 17 Saturday.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations decreased – from 230 Friday to 228 Saturday.
- Inpatient hospitalizations stayed the same at 212 Saturday.
- The number of patients in the ICUs decreased, from 49 Friday to 47 Saturday.
- The number of patients on ventilators decreased – from 33 Friday to 30 Saturday.
- Across the system hospitals, 23 COVID-19 patients were discharged on Friday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 2,839.
While numbers in the St. Louis area have for the most part remained on a steady decline, numbers in Missouri are on the rise again.
As of 2 p.m., the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is reporting 20,261 total COVID-19 cases in the state. That's 347 more than were reported Friday.
Overall, the state says 996 deaths in Missouri can be attributed to the coronavirus.
Friday saw an increase of 493 cases in Missouri.
That is the second highest daily increase since the health department began tracking COVID-19, trailing only Thursday’s record number of new cases.
READ MORE: Missouri reports backlog of tests resulting in single-day record number of new tests, COVID-19 cases
Thursday’s increase was largely attributed to a three-day backlog of test results that came in from private company Quest Diagnostics. The backlog delayed the reporting of both negative and positive tests from the lab, a total of more than 13,000. In all Thursday, the state health department reported a total of 14,624 new tests – a record number for one day in Missouri.
However, on Friday, DHSS reported less than half the number of tests as it did Thursday, but the number of new cases only dropped slightly.
- Thursday: 553 new cases, 14,624 new tests
- Friday: 493 new cases, 6,970 new tests
The large difference between new tests and new cases on Thursday actually led Missouri’s positivity rate to drop. However, the rate increased from 5.68% Thursday to 5.71% Friday. This marks the sixth increase in the positivity rate in the last seven days.
Overall, the positivity rate increased by 1.5% over the last week, from 5.62% last Friday to 5.71% on June 26.
On Friday, task force incident commander Dr. Alex Garza reminded everyone that “we’re really not out of this yet.” He said the St. Louis area – and the U.S. as a whole – are at a delicate point in the pandemic, and he urged everyone to remain focused.
“We don't want our numbers to spike again. We've done a lot of great work over the past months. We've sacrificed a lot and we don't want all of that sacrifice to go to waste,” Dr. Garza said.
He was especially concerned with the Fourth of July holiday coming up next weekend, and the possibility of seeing a lack of social distancing like what happened at the Lake of the Ozarks over the Memorial Day weekend.
“It's a holiday weekend and people like to gather and be outside and stuff like that. And I completely get it. But this is a different year. This is a different holiday season, and we're gonna have to be adaptable to it. And that's unfortunate, but that's the environment that we find ourselves in right now,” he said.
As of right now, Dr. Garza is confident that the spreading of the virus is under control in the St. Louis area.
“We feel pretty confident that we're in a good spot right now. But what that doesn't translate into that we should start relaxing,” Dr. Garza said Friday. “So, we need to continue to do the things that we have done so far to prevent transmission to keep that rate low. So, it's not the time to relax.”
