ST. LOUIS — The toll of the coronavirus continued to rise on Saturday, as area counties reported more cases and more deaths. At the same time, glimmers of a return to normalcy appeared, first in an outlying county’s decision to reopen, and then in an area leader delivering good news.
Officials in Franklin County, despite fervent national debate on the subject — and some residents’ hesitations — declared the county open for businesses.
And Dr. Alex Garza, chief of the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force, said social distancing and other steps have reduced the virus’ “reproduction factor” to such a degree that each person here with the disease now infects, on average, less than one other person. If the computer models are correct, he said, the area should move past the contagion’s peak in the next several days.
And the rate of infection should slowly begin to drop, he said.
People are also reading…
“This has been an incredible sacrifice,” Garza said in his daily briefing. “The economic and humanitarian cost — people out of work, lost wages, small businesses closed — is staggering. But the sacrifice has saved many thousands of lives.”
Still, the count climbed: in Missouri, by 201 cases to 6,826, and by 11 deaths to 273; in Illinois, by 2,119 cases to 41,777, and by 80 deaths to 1,874.
St. Louis County continued to lead the region in cases and deaths, rising 67 cases to 2,720 and 10 deaths to 127.
But Garza said that rate is slowing. At the time of the area’s first recorded case of COVID-19 on March 8, the reproduction factor was greater than 5 — that is, each infected person passed the disease on to an average of more than five other people, Garza said.
When the stay-at-home order was issued on March 23, the reproduction factor was about 2. Each infected person passed the disease on to an average of about two other people.
Initial estimates pegged the local infection rate’s peak for this week, Garza said. But he cautioned that the peak can only be determined in hindsight.
“The virus will let us know when the peak has occurred,” he said.
The pandemic task force takes information from the largest area hospital systems, including BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health and St. Luke’s Hospital, spanning multiple counties.
Garza announced that those hospital groups had 652 coronavirus patients Saturday, down from 701 the day before but still significantly above the numbers seen earlier this month. Of those hospitalized patients, 159 were in intensive care, down from 168 on Friday. One hundred eighteen were on ventilators, up slightly from 114 on Friday; 48 more patients were discharged from those hospitals, bringing the total of discharged patients to 1,082.
Franklin County officials weren’t waiting for better news.
The county has had 107 cases and 11 deaths. But 40 of its 50 active cases and all but one of the deaths have come at skilled nursing facilities, said Presiding Commissioner Tim Brinker, including a 99-year-old woman at a nursing home, just announced.
At 12:01 a.m. Saturday, Franklin County opened golf courses, movie theaters, concert halls, gyms, fitness studios, tanning salons, bowling alleys and skating rinks. All have been closed since March 24.
Brinker said in an email on Saturday that the reaction to the changes had been positive.
But business owners, several who said they felt constrained by state rules barring gatherings of more than 10, didn’t all rush to open. Some said they would wait until May 4, when Gov. Mike Parson said he would allow most businesses to reopen. Parson said new rules would be released Monday.
Two county movie theaters both cited the state’s 10-person limit, adding that they lacked new movies to show. Karl Mittler, one of the owners of Cinema 1 Plus theater in Washington, said that he does not expect anything new from Hollywood until July or August. “L.A. has to open for Hollywood to open,” he said.
Mittler said that the theater could do retro nights, or possibly a drive-in event in the parking lot. They’ve been selling large bags of popcorn on Friday and Saturday nights, and have had a great response from the community.
At Luxury Tan in Union, a clear plastic shield protected front-counter workers, one of whom said business had returned to normal. She then asked a reporter to leave, saying he was putting the business over the 10-person limit.
Anytime Fitness, in Washington, opened on Saturday, and even had a few customers. But owner Sean Leslie said the state limit of 10 or fewer people inside kept him from fully opening. Exercise classes, for instance, have not resumed, because they would put the gym over the limit. So Leslie said he is not charging customers.
Still, members like Kia Herbst and Kathy Reary were happy to work out.
“It’s like a part of you is missing,” said Herbst, who is 16 weeks pregnant.
Kathy Reary, 74, added, “We missed it, I tell you.”