Thread by @Rebeccarivas

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?

https://twitter.com/Rebeccarivas/status/1324823245087006721

"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👇🏽

https://twitter.com/Rebeccarivas/status/1324367337538146304?s=20

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