Dr. Garza looked absolutely defeated during the briefing on the state of St. Louis' hospitals.

Even in STL city with a mask mandate, that flag football team is still playing in TG park Saturdays — maskless.

People aren't listening. Do mask mandates work w/o enforcement?
"The virus is hitting us harder now more than ever.

More people are sick. More people are going to the hospital.

And hospitals are at or near their capacity in our region — not just COVID patients, all patients." — @alexgarzaMD
"So, when you see someone not wearing a mask in public, not social distancing, or inviting groups for an informal gathering, you're seeing someone who is unwilling to do proven things to help us get the virus back under control and to get back to normal." @alexgarzaMD
"Things are already worse than they have ever have been AND THEY'RE GETTING WORSE DAY BY DAY." @alexgarzaMD

(Dr. Garza said this calmly, but I added the all caps for him.)
"WE ARE HEADING INTO AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS TIME!

THERE IS SO MUCH VIRUS IN THE COMMUNITY, IT'S FRANKLY BEYOND FRIGHTENING!!!" @alexgarzaMD

(Again I added the all caps and exclamation points for Dr. Garza)
St. Louis is consistently seeing hospital admissions in the 90s. (!!) The 7-day average (73) is double what it was just a few wks ago.

"We have not seen a rolling average of hospitalizations anywhere near this, even before this shelter-in-place order in the spring."@alexgarzaMD
The city's pubic health director yesterday said they're going to try an outreach plan before tightening restrictions. Advisory board said they'd give Dr. Echols a week to try it. Follow that discussion👇🏽
Don't take off your mask to eat lunch with your colleagues at the office.

"We've seen numerous outbreaks from that occurring. You have to act like the virus is around you all the time." Dr. Alex Garza, incident commander of the St. Louis Metro Pandemic Task Force.
Garza: "At some point, there will no more capacity.

We've seen tremendous growth over the last few wks. The curve is much steeper than what it's been in the past. It's certainly not a gradual growth. It's a very rapid growth & we're seeing that in cases and hospitalizations."
COVID patients make up 15% ICU beds. And 11% of total beds.

Pandemic task force never wanted to get past 10%. And 20% puts them at "extreme" risk.

"We are rapidly approaching that with ICU beds," Dr. Alex Garza.
"Our staff is depleted, from being quarantined or sick or frankly, some people are leaving the workforce bc they're tired. We're starting with a deficit from a personnel perspective.

It's all adding up to be a worse situation than we were in the spring." @alexgarzaMD

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More from @Rebeccarivas

9 Nov
The #moleg Special Committee on Criminal Justice hearing is starting.

Watch here. (Click Hearing Room 7): house.mo.gov/MediaCenter.as…
MO legislators will be talking about restricting chokeholds, no knock warrants, and officers "having sexual relations" with inmates. #moleg
Sheriff group rep. saying that there's a difference between vascular and respiratory restraints.

“Respiratory restraint applies direct pressure to the trachea. It should be restricted to the deadly force.”

Advocating to keep both restraints.
Read 10 tweets
9 Nov
STL County cases have tripled. Hospitals are near capacity and public health officials are overwhelmed, @DrSamPage saying now.

People need to stay at home as much as possible so St. Louis County doesn't have to increase public-health restrictions, he said. #COVID19 #STL
.@DrSamPage urges:

Avoid personal interactions. If you can work from home, do so.

If your business and you can take care of your customers with curbside, do so.

Wear a mask everywhere.

Create a 10-person bubble but still wear a mask. That will help w contact tracing.
A @DeSmetJesuitHS student held a Halloween party with about 200 students. 5 students have since tested positive. Others with symptoms are awaiting test results.

@DrSamPage called it a super spreader event. Asking all students who attended the party to quarantine immediately.
Read 6 tweets
6 May
There isn't a "robust trend” downward in hospital numbers, said @DrSamPage today. Yet, St. Louis County & @STLCityGov set date to lift public health restrictions for May 18. One doctor said date doesn't matter as much as region's commitment to precautions.
stlamerican.com/city-county-to…
Page & @LydaKrewson rely on hospital data in making decisions about public health restrictions because this data shows the amount of transmission in the community. On 5/4, both said they weren't ready to set a specific date. On 5/5, they set May 18. What happened?
“People like to have some sort of clarity of what’s going to happen. There was some pressure on the elected officials. You can only go so far w not setting down a specific date. That’s human nature.” -Dr. Alex Garza, incident commander of STL Pandemic Task Force, who advise them.
Read 5 tweets
8 Apr
In October, Dr. Alex Garza, who is the now face of the STL region's medical #COVID19 response, wrote an article about how pandemics have a similar impact as gun violence. "They affect the poor and vulnerable disproportionately."

And it's now playing out.
stlamerican.com/news/local_new…
St. Louis County Executive Sam Page provided @StLouisAmerican with some preliminary data that confirms what Garza is seeing in the hospitals. According to calculations on rate per 100,000, African Americans are being infected at a rate 4 times higher than white county residents.
“That’s why we made the decisions we made before we had the data to prove it. My administration looks at every complex policy through a lens of equity & applies it aggressively and directs resources to where they are needed,” @DrSamPage.
Read 9 tweets

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