The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force reports the hospitalization numbers every day for the metropolitan area’s largest healthcare systems: BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health and St. Luke’s Hospital.
On Thursday, May 7, there were 596 patients in the task force’s hospitals and who had either tested positive for COVID-19 or were awaiting test results.
That’s down from 630 on Wednesday. The number of patients in the intensive care units is 147, and the number of people on ventilators is 106. The number of new hospital admissions (data-lagged two days) increased slightly – from 29 Wednesday to 35 Thursday.
Dr. Alex Garza, incident commander of the task force, has said that the seven-day moving average of the total number of COVID-19 patients in the hospitals is a good indicator of transmission in the region. It was 646 on May 7, which was down from 659 on May 6.
Another important data point is the seven-day “moving average” of new hospital admissions, which is an even more timely data trend than the hospitalization average, Garza said. On April 9, that seven-day average stood at 59, and that number is now down to 39 on May 7.
Across the system hospitals, 45 COVID-19 patients were discharged yesterday, bringing the cumulative number of patients discharged to 1,553.
St. Louis County and city remain under stay-at-home public health orders until May 18. St. Charles County lifted its limited public health order on May when Gov. Mike Parson lifted his statewide order.
