ST. LOUIS, Mo. – The St. Louis region will head into the weekend under the sobering reality that the region’s hospitals have endured their single worst week on record for hospitalizations and deaths related to the COVID-19 pandemic.  In new figures released today by the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, the group reports its highest number of hospitalizations—1,432 patients—during the pandemic.

In what has been statistically the region’s worst week during the pandemic in dealing with hospitalizations, St. Louis has seen an incredible 1,302 new hospital admissions since Sunday and reported 115 deaths in that time.  The 1,378 COVID-positive patients now hospitalized in Task Force hospitals is the new single-day record for the number of patients.  Task Force hospitals are comprised of facilities operated by the SSM, BJC, Mercy, and St. Luke’s Hospital health systems.  Another 54 patients are currently hospitalized with suspected cases of COVID.

214 patients are receiving critical care in ICU units today and 129 patients are on ventilators.  The Task Force reported 17 new deaths, stopping a streak of three consecutive days of patient deaths exceeding more than 20 people.   The silver lining in today’s numbers might be the 46 pediatric patients now hospitalized, the lowest number of children receiving care in more than two weeks.  A majority of those pediatric patients—28 of the 46 patients—are children under the age of 11.