Dr. Alex Garza, the leader of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, kicked off his COVID-19 briefing on Monday with the news that the St. Louis region continues to see an "alarming" rise in COVID-19 cases. Both hospitalization and admission numbers are increasing, and Garza warned that failure to stop the spread of the virus could mean that the region would need to re-institute restrictions like stay-at-home orders.
"At this point, it's really challenging because the cases are growing so fast that the testing piece, and the contact tracing and quarantine pieces, aren't enough," Garza said. "They're [the cases] stretching our resources to the limits, and they're fairly saturated. The only way we can catch up with testing, contact tracing, and quarantining is to decrease the number of cases. And the only way to decrease the number of cases is to wear a mask."
Data for Monday included:
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased from 35 to 38.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased from 33 to 34.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased from 217 to 228.
- The number of COVID patients in the ICUs increased from 55 to 58.
- The number of COVID-positive patients on ventilators increased from 27 to 31.
A few other points from Garza's briefing:
While the COVID-19 inpatient census is trending above the task force model's best guess, the ICU census numbers are improving, which Garza attributed to better treatments for the virus.
The epidemic curve charts—which show new cases in St. Louis and the surrounding counties—that Garza shared indicate a steep, sudden uptick of cases in all of the counties except for low-populated areas on the Illinois side. Urban, rural, and suburban areas, Garza said, are experiencing widespread transmission.
One of the final graphics Garza shared was a map indicating change in cases by ZIP code. The ZIP codes that saw rapid increases in cases are 63385 and 63376—both in St. Charles County—and 63019, to the east of Shrewsbury.
The continued rise in cases comes at a time when schools in the St. Louis area are beginning to release plans for reopening—be it in person or online—in the fall. Last week, St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page announced he would be rolling back youth sports, citing the events as sites that spread the virus. On Monday, Governor Mike Parson gave a radio interview on 97.1 FM about schools reopening and youth sports. "There's data out there, scientific evidence, of who this affects and who it doesn't," he said. "And kids are the least likely to have a problem with this...these kids have got to get back to school, they're at the lowest risk possible, and if they do get COVID-19, which they will, and they will when they go to school, they're not going to the hospitals...they're going to go home...we gotta get real with that."
Garza said that though healthy children do not have those poor outcomes with COVID-19, "school is not just composed of children." Teachers and other personnel would also be potentially exposed. Because an increase in the virus in the community means that the risk of transmission in places like schools also increases, Garza said that "the way to send our kids and our teachers and our support staff back to school safely is to decrease the virus in the community. It can't all just be on the doorstep of the schools."
You can watch the full briefing below:
