Warnings from St. Louis County and Pandemic Task Force
The probability for additional public health restrictions foreshadowed Monday’s media COVID-19 briefing by St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page. A sustained rise in COVID-19 cases in the area indicate not everyone is doing their part to avoid and slow down the spread of the coronavirus.
“We have come to a crossroads in our fight against COVID-19. And just last month, the number of new cases of COVID-19 has tripled,” Page said. “Our hospitals are nearly full, and our Health Dept. is overwhelmed and exhausted. Our state and our region are setting new records for COVID-19 every day.
“If this doesn’t change a week or two from now and we are standing here with the same rate of increase, then we will have to be considering more restrictions,” Page said. “We have one last chance to slow the cases of COVID-19 in our community before we are forced to take action.”
A major health concern is with dangers posed by social gatherings of any kind.
“No gatherings are safe. We cannot emphasize that enough. There are not enough protections in place for weddings, for funerals, for parties — even a party in your own backyard, to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
That’s no matter how fun they are, no matter how much you enjoy being with your family or friends; no matter how much you love them.
Page is advising everyone to avoid personal interactions, and if they can work from home, do so. “The safest place for everyone to be is at home,” Page said, and to wear a mask any time you go outside of your home.
If you have to interact with others, Page advises to identify a small group of 10 or less — an inner circle that you would limit your interactions with — still practicing good hand hygiene, wearing masks and maintaining socially distances.
“If any member of your group gets sick, then you must identify everyone in your group so they can quarantine and obtain a test,” he said.
And in a different twist on contact tracing, should someone in your inner group contracts COVID-19, Page said, “You must be able to do your own contract tracing. Why? Because our public health officials are going to be spending their time on contact tracing with our most vulnerable populations, and you, your friends and family may not be a vulnerable person.”
Page also advises persons who have recently attended a gathering to self-quarantine.
“If you have participated in an event, a gathering, a wedding, or funeral or a party, or you have traveled, it is our recommendation that you self-quarantine for 14 days. This will lower the risk of transmitting COVID-19 to others.”
While Page worries there may not be enough room in area hospitals for patients who get hurt in accidents, suffer a heart attack or other serious health problems, Dr. Alex Garza, incident commander of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, warned that there may come a time that hospitals will not have room to treat COVID-19 patients.
“Our concern is without significant progress, we as a community will have to make some recommendations to try and slow down the spread,” Garza said. “This is not the time to ignore the proven measures that we know that help control the virus and allow businesses to stay open. So, every time we skip wearing a mask, choose to gather in a group of people who are not socially distancing, we are giving the virus more control over our economy, and over our lives.”
Sadly, Garza said the virus is winning right now. On Monday, there were 600 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and another 150 patients hospitalized who are suspected to have COVID-19 at the four systems and hospitals making up the Task Force: BJC Healthcare, SSM Health, Mercy and St. Luke’s Hospital. “That is the highest number of patients since we began tracking the pandemic, he said.
“This not only means that the virus is spreading faster than ever, but more people are getting sick enough to be hospitalized, and all of that is happening before we get into the colder weather, where we know the virus will spread even faster,” Garza said. “What is really bad for now businesses and hospitals health care workers and sick patients will get even worse when it gets colder.”
Garza said the systems cannot sustain this number of hospitalizations.
“We expect to be setting records everyday because we don’t expect this data to suddenly make a turndown,” Garza said.
“If nothing dramatically changes going forward, we’ll most likely reach our ICU high watermark from the spring, on or around Thanksgiving.”
The hotspot COVID-19 ZIP codes showing significant growth in coronavirus cases last week for the Task Force hospital systems were located in St. Charles, O’Fallon, Missouri., Wentzville and Affton.
“We are a long way from getting this virus under control,” Garza said. “Minus vaccine, the only way we can get through this pandemic is to limit the transmission. We simply can’t go on at this pace.
“And we know there will come a time in the not so distant future when we can no longer do anything more to safely and effectively care for every patient in our hospital,” Garza warned. “So, the best time to act was yesterday.”
Garza and health care workers implore the public to “stop having those informal gatherings; to wear a mask at all times when you’re outside of your house; and quit making this pandemic worse than it needs to be.”
We all deal with the ramifications of those actions.
“You can’t have a fully open economy with no regard to mitigating spread and not following the rules and expect there not to be consequences,” Garza said. “This is fundamental for life. Decisions have consequences.