Dr. Alex Garza, incident commander for the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, fielded questions on April 29 about whether medical leaders are worried that easing stay-at-home orders statewide on May 4 — which will include St. Charles and Franklin counties — will undermine the St. Louis region’s efforts to slow the spread of the virus.
“Anytime you do something that increases the probability of transmission, you’re always worried about the number of cases that come with it,” said Garza, chief medical officer for SSM Health. “Of course you would be concerned that steps that are taken, where people are in contact more and more, increases the probability of transmission.”
Garza said St. Louis County and the City of St. Louis leaders are “absolutely right” in choosing not to follow the governor’s lead because of the continued high number of hospitalizations in the St. Louis region. However, other Missouri counties can reduce the rate of transmission by making sure residents are following social-distancing rules, washing hands, keeping surfaces clean, and wearing masks. It also depends on a robust public health response of testing, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine. The state can control spread while lifting restrictions, he said, but it has to be done well.
“And the community has to be invested in doing it well,” Garza said.
The task force includes four major health care systems: BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health and St Luke’s Hospital.
Every day, Garza gives a briefing on the task force’s COVID-19 statistics that represent 2.8 million people for an area that encompasses surrounding counties in Missouri and Illinois in the larger St. Louis region.
Garza reported on Wednesday, April 29 that there were 702 people currently hospitalized within the four medical systems, who have either tested positive for COVID-19 or are awaiting test results. Of those, 160 were in the intensive care unit (ICU) and 121 were on ventilators. The good news is that 42 people were discharged, totaling 1,209 patients that have been discharged since the first reported case in the region.
