ST. LOUIS (KMOX/AP) - As Missouri saw its highest one-day increase of COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, the head of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force Dr. Alex Garza says hospital admissions are steady, but he has concerns.
"People getting back into the normal of what summer activities, typically don't mean you're wearing masks and things like that," Garza says. "Then the issue is convincing people, 'Hey, the virus is still out there and we still need to protect both ourselves and everyone else."
Garza says that means wearing masks and social distancing because the coronavirus is very active and believes it "will not go away until a vaccine comes."
St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson says the numbers across the state don't reflect what's happening in St. Louis. On Monday, Krewson says there were 17 new hospitalizations in the St. Louis region and the total number of hospitalizations continues to decrease.
More than half of the new weekend cases came from one county in the southwestern area of the state.. The McDonald County Health Department announced 235 new cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, bringing its total to 473.
Though the county has just 23,000 residents, only six counties and the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City have confirmed more cases in Missouri.
McDonald County Health Department Director Paige Behm said the big increase is due in part to testing at two poultry plants, one operated by Tyson Foods in Noel and the other operated by Simmons Foods in Southwest City. But Behm said the cases extend beyond workers at the two plants.
“It’s people from all over the community,” she said. “I wouldn’t say it’s all Tyson or all Simmons.”
Behm said the big increase is “very concerning, but I think it’s important that we’ve done a lot of testing to identify, isolate and contact trace so we can kind of see what’s going on in the community. But it’s more widespread than we realized.”
Missouri’s health director, Randall Williams, said last week that all 1,400 workers at the Tyson plant were being testing. State health department spokeswoman Lisa Cox said test results are expected to be released Tuesday, when the state also is expected to announce “additional plans that are being put in place for that area.”
Tyson Foods is looking into reports that China’s customs agency has suspended poultry imports from a Tyson facility in the United States after coronavirus cases were confirmed among its employees. But a Tyson spokesman said Sunday that the plant in question is in Springdale, Arkansas, not in southwestern Missouri.
McDonald County sits at the border of Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Tyson said in a statement that its top priority is “the health and safety of our team members, their families and our communities.”
The McDonald County Health Department, on its Facebook page, urged residents to avoid gatherings beyond immediate family. It suggested that anyone leaving their home wear a mask and practice social distancing.
Missouri was among the earliest states to reopen after the shutdown caused by the virus, and statewide restrictions were lifted effective June 16. Republican Gov. Mike Parson has urged Missourians to use common sense in taking steps to slow the spread of the virus.
Several rural Missouri outbreaks have been centered around meat plants, including facilities in northwestern and central Missouri. While cases are dropping in the hard-hit St. Louis area, several rural counties are seeing an increase in numbers.