ST. LOUIS – The state of Missouri reports its largest-ever single-day increase in COVID-19 cases. This comes as the six St. Louis area counties that we track confirm more than 200 additional Coronavirus cases and one new COVID-19 death.

Meanwhile, the new case increases come as the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force reports a decrease in almost all of its key COVID-19 hospital figures.

The latest information from the task force shows five of six hospital categories are down. Those include new hospital admissions, the seven days moving average of hospitalizations, inpatient hospitalizations, and the number of patients in the ICU as well as on ventilators.

Missouri reports 553 more cases Friday morning with now at least 989 total deaths. Illinois has added 894 more cases and 41 additional deaths.

The 553 new Missouri cases are the highest one day increase in reported cases in Missouri since the pandemic began. State officials are blaming the number at least in part to a delay in test results coming in from Quest Diagnostics due to technical issues.

Governor Parson says overall Missouri is still in a good place when it comes to recovery and is not experiencing a second wave of cases.

2,955 people in St. Louis County who had COVID-19 are now better and have been released from isolation. That is an increase of 44 people from Thursday morning. There are 931 others from the additional local counties we track who also had the virus have been released from isolation.