ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force pleads with people to wear masks in any public space where the vaccination status is not known. There is also talk of a possible new mask mandate to try and combat the latest COVID surge with the Delta variant.
St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page is slated to hold a COVID-19 briefing at the main county building beginning at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. Page is expected to call the situation dire and point out that St. Louis County is now averaging about 170 new COVID-19 cases every day with a positivity rate of nine percent.
Those numbers put us close to the CDC’s red zone for widespread community transmission and that Page expects COVID cases to continue to rise rapidly in the coming weeks.
The latest St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force numbers revealed seven COVID-19 deaths since Monday. 49 new patients were admitted to task force hospitals Tuesday. That is tied for the most since April. There are now 279 confirmed COVID-positive patients hospitalized. That’s the most since February.
Area health leaders said everyone should follow the latest public health advisory from the St. Louis County Health Department. It says everyone should wear masks at indoor public places regardless of their vaccination status. It also says people should wear masks outdoors if they are in large crowds and can’t social distance or are unsure of the vaccination status of people around them.
The acting head of the task force, Dr. Clay Dunagan, is also urging all eligible people to get vaccinated. Dunagan said the vaccination rate in the St. Louis area isn’t high enough to stop the spread of the Delta variant.
FOX 2 will have live coverage of Sam Page’s press conference on-air as well as on social media and the website.
