Daily deaths tripled in St. Louis area hospitals following increase in COVID patients
The number of people to die from COVID-19 in St. Louis hospitals each day has “effectively tripled” since October, the leader of a hospital task force said Monday.
Dr. Alex Garza, commander of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, said the “dramatic uptick” in deaths follows an increase in the number of patients with COVID-19 in the hospitals, which has also tripled since October.
The task force includes four health care systems: BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health and St. Luke’s Hospital. On Nov. 13, Garza said the task force hospitals were nearing capacity.
“When we began seeing the current surge back in October, each day we saw around seven COVID patients in our systems that would lose their lives to this virus,” Garza said during Monday’s press briefing. “Seven people every day was too many to us, but in just a couple of months, that number has effectively tripled. Right now, every day we’re seeing the virus kill approximately 20 patients who have been hospitalized.
“That is 20 people a day who won’t be going back home to their loved ones.”
Data from Illinois and Missouri show the same trend in people with COVID-19 who are not in hospitals, according to Garza. “When more people get sick with COVID, more people are going to die,” he said. “That’s the deadly math we are seeing right now.”
St. Clair County on Monday announced 12 county residents had died from COVID-19, its highest one-day increase in deaths since the pandemic began.
COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus.
Garza highlighted new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Friday to “address high levels of community transmission...and related deaths,” according to the CDC. Garza called it the agency’s “most comprehensive list yet.”
Among the recommendations are to postpone travel, avoid “nonessential” indoor spaces and for “everyone at every time when you’re outside of your house” to wear face masks, Garza said.
“This is the best way to keep the virus spread down and to keep people alive,” Garza said.
The virus can spread when an infected person coughs, sneezes, talks, sings or breathes around other people, according to the CDC. The risk of transmission increases when people are gathered together in a confined space.
