CLAYTON — ºüÀêÊÓƵ County flexed its legal muscles on Monday, going to court to try to force the closing of fitness centers in Chesterfield and Maryland Heights that have flouted the county executive’s emergency stay-at-home order.
The county also wants a complete list of every person who entered the House of Pain gyms since the order became effective on March 19, including each person’s name and contact information, to be used by the county’s contact tracing employees. And it wants House of Pain to pay the costs of testing everyone on the list for the coronavirus.
The county’s first attempt to shut down a pandemic scofflaw comes as some signs start to point toward the region being ready to reopen.
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COVID-19 hospitalizations in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ area reached a new low Monday, as new confirmed cases of the virus statewide in Missouri continued to trend downward. And there were encouraging trends in Illinois, where models showed on average every person with COVID-19 infects about one other person in Illinois now, down from 3½ people earlier this month, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said.
A new week also brought promising news about availability of treatments. Missouri health officials said they were set to receive 4,000 vials of remdesivir to fight COVID-19 as part of a nationwide distribution from the company that makes it. Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services Director Randall Williams said Monday that the drug will be used to treat 600 people.
But it was also a day that showed how pervasively the virus could spread. Thirty-four inmates and five staff members at the Lincoln County jail tested positive for COVID-19 after widespread testing in the Troy facility. The jail, which also contracts to house federal prisoners, has a capacity of about 150 people.
By Monday, 126 inmates had been been tested for the virus, and all 34 who were positive have been isolated, according to a from the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, and the county’s health department. The positive cases included people both with and without symptoms.
No inmates have been hospitalized or died as a result of the virus, according to the statement, and all five staff members have since recovered and were quarantined.
House of Pain
House of Pain reopened locations in Maryland Heights and Chesterfield last week and continued to operate despite a threat of legal action from the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County counselor and a deadline of 5 p.m. Sunday to shut down. The county filed suit on Monday in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Circuit Court.
Only essential businesses can remain open and all others must cease all activities except basic operations, under a stay-at-home order that ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Executive Sam Page . Page said last week he plans to gradually relax the restrictions beginning on May 18, but, even then, gyms are not among the businesses that will be allowed to reopen.
The county’s lawsuit asserts that the state constitution and laws, and the county charter, empower county health officials to enforce restrictions on businesses to protect the public health. And it pointed to a ruling Friday in U.S. District Court in ºüÀêÊÓƵ that denied a temporary restraining order for city and county businesses that had sued to reopen. The judge in that case found that “government authorities must have the ability to maintain public health and safety in times of great crises such as these.â€
Page said on Monday, “There are 30,000 businesses in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County. (We) will occasionally have outliers like we do with any law, local, state or federal. And then we’ll manage those on a case by case basis.â€
W. Chris McDonough, a lawyer for House of Pain, in a text said the county had filed “a punitive retaliatory lawsuit against a business that has done nothing wrong. (We) are confident the rule of law, and freedom, will ultimately prevail.â€
Working together
There were also indications that ºüÀêÊÓƵ and ºüÀêÊÓƵ County were working to bring their guidelines for reopening businesses into alignment after a haphazard rollout on Friday resulted in plans that did not quite match up.
The lack of coordination drew criticism from Mark Mantovani, one of three candidates who are challenging Page in the Democratic primary for county executive. “I’m disappointed that once again our community is being pulled in different directions,†he said. “Wouldn’t it make more sense for all if our regional leaders, county executives and mayors actually came together to develop a unified approach to the coronavirus?â€
Mayor Lyda Krewson said her staff was working on posting guidelines for individual industries.
“These will be the same in the city and, and in the county, which I think is only sensible,†she said.
In comments to reporters, Page said on Monday the county could revisit later this week one key deviation from the city’s plan: restrictions on child care centers.
On Friday, Page had said there would be no change to a rule that allows child care centers to operate only if they provide care for essential workers. In the city, only child care centers for first responders have been allowed to operate, but Krewson said that would be expanded to allow child care for others under .
Page said Monday: “We’re going to take another look at that and maybe refine it this week.â€
Krewson also clarified that the Lumière Place casino would not be able to open in the city after the Missouri Gaming Commission’s order closing riverboat gambling expires at midnight on Friday, or when the city begins its reopening the following Monday.
Mike Leara, the commission’s chairman, said he thought the commission’s order would be extended at least another week and that some casinos in the state might be able to reopen then, but that it would be the call of local health departments.
Numbers
At the ºüÀêÊÓƵ area’s major hospital systems — BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health and St. Luke’s Hospital — 492 people diagnosed with or suspected of having the virus received treatment over the prior 24 hours Monday afternoon, according to the ºüÀêÊÓƵ Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force. That is the lowest number since April 6, the day after the hospitals began tracking.
Of those, 131 were in intensive care units Monday and 98 were using ventilators to breathe, both the lowest numbers the hospitals have recorded.
The seven-day average of hospitalizations in the region was at 563 Monday, down from the April 21 peak of 706.
Statewide, Missouri reported 74 new confirmed cases of the virus, the lowest number reported in a single day since March 29.
The seven-day average number of new cases reported daily in Missouri fell Monday to 166, the lowest mark since March 31.
There have been a total of 9,918 confirmed cases and 488 COVID-19 related deaths in the state since the start of the outbreak.
Missouri has tested about 3,500 people a day over the past week, up from about 3,000 per day the week before. About 116,000 patients had been tested in the state by Sunday.
In Illinois, which has about twice as many residents, the state has run about 442,000 tests. Illinois officials announced 1,266 new cases Monday and 54 additional COVID-19 deaths. That brought the state total to 79,007 confirmed cases and 3,459 deaths since the start of the outbreak.
In the ºüÀêÊÓƵ metro area, including Illinois suburbs, at least 508 people with COVID-19 have died.
In both Missouri and Illinois, state counts of the virus have differed from totals provided by local health departments, often lagging behind, but the latest numbers released by counties in the metro area include:
Nationally by Monday afternoon, nearly 80,100 people with the virus have died in the U.S., . More than 1.3 million people across the country have tested positive for COVID-19.
Erin Heffernan, Robert Patrick, Rachel Rice and Kurt Erickson of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
Editor's note: This version restores first reference to County Executive in 10th paragraph.