ST. LOUIS — If you traveled over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend or went to a large family gathering, the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force is asking you to self-quarantine.
"If you did go on a trip or went to a large family gathering, we're asking you to assume that you've been exposed to the virus and to self quarantine. If you do that, even now, we have a much better chance of slowing the spread and letting our health service, health care systems get caught up because we continue to see too many people getting sick and having to come to our hospitals," Dr. Alexander Garza - head of the task force - said during Monday's briefing.
"And if the numbers don't go down very soon, we may not be able to keep up. We'll continue to have to look for other places to treat patients outside of our region."
Dr. Garza warned if the numbers don't go down, health care workers will have to make decisions about who gets care and who can't get care because there's not enough space or staff.
The task force says if the numbers continue in the way they are, hospitals in the area will reach the maximum COVID-19 inpatient capacity on or around Dec. 8.
The following data are the combined figures from the four major health systems (BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health, St. Luke’s Hospital) that are part of the task force, for Nov. 30.
- New hospital admissions (data lagged two days) decreased from 116 to 108 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospital admissions (data lagged two days) remained the same at 116 today.
- The seven-day moving average of hospitalizations increased – from 897 yesterday to 914 today, a new seven-day moving average record.
- Inpatient confirmed COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 920 yesterday to 961 today, a new hospital admissions record.
- Inpatient suspected COVID positive hospitalizations increased – from 74 yesterday to 96 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients in the ICUs remained the same at 202 today.
- The number of confirmed COVID positive patients on ventilators decreased – from 127 yesterday to 123 today.
- Across the system hospitals, 108 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of COVID-19 patients discharged to 10,819.
- Today, staffed bed hospital capacity is at 79%, an average across our task force hospitals. The ICU’s are at 88% of their total staffed bed capacity.
St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson held a briefing Monday afternoon and said the message is still the same, "the numbers are too high." She said the numbers in the city were less than others in the region, but that it was nothing to celebrate.
St. Louis County Executive Sam Page held a briefing Monday morning.
Page reiterated area hospitals are running out of space.
"Hospitals could run out of ICU beds as early as this week and they may call on the Missouri National Guard for help," Page said.