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St. Louis County reports single-day record 261 new COVID-19 cases as hospitalizations continue to increase

Hospitalizations in the St. Louis area are increasing as counties see sharp increases in new cases

ST. LOUIS — St. Louis County on Thursday reported a single-day record for new COVID-19 cases for the second time in three days.

On Thursday, the county health department reported 261 newly confirmed cases, bringing the county's total to 8,561. Thursday's single-day increase topped the previous mark of 243 set on Tuesday.

The total number of tests administered in the county increased by 3,183 on Thursday. The county said 121,385 tests have been administered. No new deaths were reported in St. Louis County Thursday.

Thursday's increase continued an upward trend in cases in the county over the last month. Since reaching a low point in the middle of June, the seven-day moving average of new cases in the county has increased steadily.

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Credit: KSDK

Other jurisdictions in the St. Louis area are also seeing sharp increases in new cases. St. Charles County reported a record 122 new cases Tuesday, 100 new cases Wednesday and 88 more on Thursday, bringing the county's total to 2070. The county has reported 961 new cases in the last 14 days, 472% more than the previous 14 days.

Credit: KSDK

The city of St. Louis reported 59 new cases Thursday. The previous spike on June 25 came a day after the city's health department finished a review of its case count. The health department found that 60 of the cases were outside of the city and another 93 should have been classified as probable cases. The next day, a backlog of tests were reported in Missouri.

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Credit: KSDK

The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force said hospitalization data is steadily increasing as well.

  • New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) stayed the same at 35 today. *
  • The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) increased – from 30 yesterday to 33 today. *
  • The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased from 185 yesterday to 195 today. 
  • Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations increased - from 220 yesterday to 229 today.
  • Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations decreased – from 146 yesterday to 128 today.
  • The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs increased – from 56 yesterday to 58 today.
  • The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators decreased – from 28 yesterday to 24 today.
  • Across the system hospitals, 32 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 3,255.  

*These numbers have been updated to reflect the true number of daily admissions. There was a delay in reporting some test results leading to the increase in reported hospital admissions. This, in turn, affected the seven-day moving average of admissions.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services reported 708 new cases in the state, bringing the total to 31,379 cases.

The state also reported 11 new deaths Thursday, the fifth consecutive day the number of deaths increased by at least 10.

The DHSS reported 11,354 new tests Thursday, bringing the total number of tests conducted to 529,301. The state's positivity rate increased slightly Thursday, from 5.74% on Wednesday to 5.75% on Thursday.

Statewide hospitalization data was not updated Thursday. A note on the DHSS website said the data will not be available while national reporting is transitioned from one system to the other.

"Please note, due to an abrupt change in data measures and the reporting platform issued by the White House on Monday, July 13, and effective Wednesday, July 15, Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) and the State of Missouri will be unable to access critical hospitalization data during the transition. While we are working to collect interim data, situational awareness will be limited.  We will resume producing the daily hospitalization snapshot as soon as the data feeds are fully restored," the note says.

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For a full county-by-county breakdown of cases in the state, use our interactive map. Some of the local county numbers come from local health departments and may not match data from the DHSS.

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