ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson stressed the need for everyone to learn how to live with COVID-19 while there is no vaccine in her update on the city’s response to the coronavirus pandemic Wednesday.
Mayor Krewson said residents need to continue efforts to limit the spread.
“The virus is, of course, still here,” she said during her Wednesday afternoon briefing on Facebook Live. “We all have to learn how to coexist with COVID.”
Mayor Krewson spoke to residents for the first time since large crowds at the Lake of the Ozarks made international headlines over the weekend. The viral scenes of people not practicing social distancing and not wearing masks prompted the mayor to ask any city residents who were part of those scenes to self-quarantine for two weeks.
“When the weekend was over, those folks went back to their homes,” she said, adding that likely meant people went home to St. Louis, St. Louis County and across the Midwest. “The risk is that if someone there was positive, then you take that back to your communities.”
Krewson said the city needs to rely on residents making good decisions and businesses controlling the number of people they’re allowing inside. She called practicing social distancing and wearing masks the “pathway” to having businesses open and residents staying healthy.
The mayor said city residents seemed to follow social distancing rules over the Memorial Day weekend. There were some smaller gatherings that were noticed and handled.
As of Monday, there are 1,867 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city and 116 people have died. The city is monitoring 137 residents.
