St. Louis Health Leaders Say Next Two Weeks Are Crucial For Easing Area Restrictions

CBS St. Louis

April 08, 2021

At Kilroy’s, a bar right next to Busch Stadium, they’re scrubbing every surface, stocking beer and preparing to open for the first time in 18 months. Ballpark Village will be following strict health guidelines during Thursday's Cardinals home opener. “We’re excited. Whole City of St. Louis is excited, but we all have to do our part to keep everyone safe and socially distancing is the policy here and we're going to stick to it,” said Duffy Huebschmann at Kilroy’s. This will be their first time opening and dealing with current COVID-19 restrictions and they plan to work hard to ensure mask mandates are following and capacity limitations.

Right now in St. Louis City and St. Louis County, restaurants and bars are limited to 50% capacity and must close at midnight. Many are anxious to see those restrictions eased. “The review is ongoing. We will have an update by mid-April to recommend to the County Executive’s office," said Dr. Faisal Khan. He's the health department director for St. Louis County.
Right now St. Louis County is averaging 145 new cases each day, a number Dr. Khan says is still uncomfortably high, especially as new variants of the coronavirus are detected in our area. But News 4 continues to ask what exact metrics he and his department are looking for to ease back on restrictions.
“It’s not just the absolute number of whether it’s going up or going down that determines the decision-making point," Dr. Khan said. "There are literally dozens of confounding factors that lead into that interpretation, for example what percentage of those new cases are attributable to those new variants."

In St. Louis City, there are clearer metrics on their website, listing the average new cases, average new hospital admissions, total number hospitalized and the average positivity rate, along with how many days the city has met the coal. For example right now the city is averaging 23 new cases. The goal is fewer than 35.
“We’ve met all those metrics except for the percent positivity which is creeping up a little bit so were monitoring that very closely,” said Dr. Frederick Echols.
He is hopeful to announce potential changes in the next two weeks. That’s when newly elected Mayor Tishaura Jones will take office. When asked about her thoughts on easing restrictions on businesses, she said she was looking forward to consulting with Dr. Echols as well as St. Louis County so they can “be in sync as much as possible.”
Meanwhile on the opposite side of the state, Kansas City has eliminated capacity and curfew rules as cases have dropped to levels seen last summer.
“Back in the summer we had looser restrictions, and as we see a return to outdoor dining, outdoor drinking, we thought it was important to ease up on our bars and restaurants, not irresponsibly, not getting rid of mask mandates but importantly saying well the trends are going in the right way and we have to be fair to our bars and restaurants,” said Mayor Quinton Lucas.
But the Kansas City mayor said social distancing is still required which inherently limits capacity. Kansas City has seen cases start to creep back up, with their latest numbers bringing the rolling average back above 100 new daily cases.
As warm weather hits St. Louis and the Cardinals return, Dr. Echols says it's important to follow current guidelines and their staff will be out and about monitoring on Opening Day to ensure the regulations are being followed.