ST. LOUIS (KMOX)-The head of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force says he is encouraged by the continued flattening of hospitalization numbers. Dr. Alex Garza says the number of confirmed or suspected covid patients in hospitals fell by 90 on Thursday, to 506. Garza calls the drop significant. "That's encouraging data that we're headed in the right direction. That all of the policy decisions that were made by elected officials, and all those other instruments we put in place, are having an impact on spread."
Garza says those numbers will be key as the city and county move toward the planned May 18 reopening of many businesses. "We'll continue to follow that data and see what it's telling us. If it follows our models like we think it will, that number should continue to decrease and put us in a good place."
Garza says as we move forward, they want to take a more targeted approach to identifying and isolating coronavirus cases.