Health care workers are “very grateful” for the yard signs across the region and the blue lights in business districts in support of their work to fight the pandemic, said Dr. Alex Garza, chief medical officer of SSM Health, on Tuesday, April 14.
“Mostly we are mostly grateful for the many people who have changed their behavior in support of those health care workers,” Garza said. “Those behavior changes are the steps that are working. That is by limiting the spread, limiting the infections and limiting the number of patients that they have to take care of, so thank you.”
Garza is the incident commander for the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force. 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 April 14 that there were 702 people currently hospitalized in the St. Louis region. Of those, 185 were in the intensive care unit (ICU) and 145 were on ventilators.
On the positive side, there were 50 discharged from the hospital.
The St. Louis region is still on the steep part of the COVID-19 curve, based on the increased number of positive COVID-19 tests.
“It’s easy to get frustrated and want to gather in larger groups, especially with the warmer weather, he said. “However, I can’t stress enough that we are reaching a critical time and we can’t let up.”
Hospitalizations are up from April 13, when the task force reported that 634 people were hospitalized. The ICU numbers were about the same from 189 on April 13. However, the number of people on ventilators is down from 160 on April 13.
Garza has anticipated that the region will see its peak in COVID-19 cases in the next 10 days. At the peak, about 80,000 of the region’s 2.8 million people could be infected with the virus — though about 30 percent will be asymptomatic.
“Our modeling has given us a range of when we think we are going to reach the apex,” he said. “But you don’t know when you’ve reached the peak until after you see a continual decline of the cases.”
Hospitals are still operating by crisis standards of care, he said, and personal protective equipment (PPE) is “the biggest challenge we are experiencing now.”
However, they are using extended use of the equipment to ensure they don’t run out of supplies.
The alternative care facility at a Quality Inn in Florissant opens on Wednesday, April 15. This is for COVID-19 patients who have mild symptoms and a means for people who are recovering, if they need someplace to quarantine, he said.