If you don't have legislative business at the Missouri Capitol, you're being asked to stay away due to concern of possible coronavirus spread.
With the Capitol being particularly susceptible to the spread of infections such as the new coronavirus that causes the disease of COVID-19, people "who are not directly participating in legislative business" are being encouraged to "refrain from visiting the Capitol at this time," according to an announcement Tuesday by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate.
[]
The announcement named the House and Senate majority and minority floor leaders, the Senate's President Pro Tem and the House Speaker in their support.
Furthermore, "Due to the large number of House members and their close proximity to guests and one another, House leadership will be taking additional precautions including closing the floor of the House Chamber to the public as well as some public places, like the House Lounge, which are difficult to disinfect on a regular basis," according to the announcement.
Public events have not been canceled, clarified Stuart Murray, the Senate Majority caucus' communications director.
"But leadership strongly encourages the public to consider the potential risks, especially to the elderly, of gathering in such a highly trafficked public building," Murray said.
"There are some events that were scheduled in the House Chamber, and we are currently looking for alternate locations for these events, such as a hearing room," said Trevor Fox, Missouri House communications' director, via email.
Fox said the upper galleries of the House chamber would remain open to the public, and only the chamber floor and House lounge would be closed to the public - effective immediately.
Murray added, "As far as the Senate is concerned, our galleries will remain open unless the situation escalates to the point that it becomes necessary."
He and Fox said cleaning measures were being stepped up for frequently-touched surfaces including door knobs, light switches and handrails.
"It is out of an abundance of caution that the General Assembly is taking the preventative steps to minimize the risk of an outbreak in Missouri," House Speaker Elijah Haahr, R-Springfield, said in a news release. "While the General Assembly continues to conduct business as normal, we will closely monitor the situation to take necessary actions to maintain a safe environment that will ensure the health and well-being of all those who work in and visit the Capitol."
'A lot of people are fearful and anxious'
Also Tuesday, public health officials told a legislative committee of state representatives, senators and others that Missouri's testing and health care capacities still far exceed the current demands of the COVID-19 situation in the state.
Last week, Dr. Randall Williams, director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, told the House Special Committee on Disease Control and Prevention the state was "very well-prepared" for COVID-19, and Williams re-asserted that message Tuesday before the Joint Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Awareness.
That said, Williams understood "a lot of people are fearful and anxious."
Public health concerns remain about COVID-19; the elderly and chronically-ill are especially vulnerable to it, and a sudden surge in cases could overwhelm the health care system.
It was announced over the weekend that Missouri had its first confirmed case of COVID-19, a woman in her 20s in the St. Louis area who had recently returned from Italy.
As of Tuesday afternoon, there had been more than 118,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally, with more than 4,200 deaths, according to a database from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
There were more than 800 cases in the U.S., with 28 people who had died - 23 in Washington state, two each in California and Florida, and one in New Jersey.
The mortality rate of the disease remains low - probably somewhere between 1-4 percent of cases, depending on factors including how many mild or asymptomatic cases have not yet been tested and the quality of care patients receive.
Approximately 80 percent of people who are infected only develop mild illness, if they ever show any symptoms at all. However, COVID-19 still appeared to be 10-20 times more lethal than annual influenza viral strains.
Williams on Tuesday cited a 2 percent death rate among people infected with COVID-19, and he described the disease as 20 times more lethal than the flu.
There is a vaccine for the flu, but Williams said a COVID-19 vaccine is likely more than a year away from being available.
Williams said Tuesday about 14 percent of people infected with COVID-19 require hospitalization, and a further 4 percent require care with a ventilator. He added COVID-19 also tends to spread quickly in settings such as nursing homes and hospitals.
Jackie Gatz, the Missouri Hospital Association's vice president of safety and preparedness, told the disaster preparedness committee Tuesday that the health care system in Missouri could handle approximately 3,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations - that's generally speaking and not 3,000 patients each in need of a ventilator.
Gatz also shared 75 percent of hospitals responding to an ongoing query from the association reported as of Tuesday morning they have adequate supplies of personal protective equipment. Furthermore, 80 percent of ventilators for adults were available.
Gatz added drive-thru testing clinics and regional testing centers are strategies in place - intended to reduce strain on and risk for hospital emergency rooms - and could be implemented as appropriate.
Williams said the state has 1 million N-95 respirator masks available, and the stockpile is being checked for any expired masks.
He added guidelines are still being developed for how to spend $9.9 million in federal funding for Missouri's response to COVID-19, but he said some of that would probably be used to acquire more protective gear for first responders, as well as possibly go toward costs associated with labor-intensive investigations involved with tracking cases.
Confidence in state's response?
Williams said 35 people have been tested for COVID-19 in Missouri, but 34 tests have come back negative. As of Tuesday, the state had about 780 testing kits available, each of which could test one person.
Bill Whitmar, the state public health laboratory's lab director, said Missouri's current testing capacity is about 100 patients a day, and there were 10-12 tests being done each day.
Williams said asymptomatic people are not being tested, and while the chance is "not zero" that someone without symptoms is incapable of spreading infection, it most commonly happens by people who are already coughing or sneezing.
He said people are typically most symptomatic - and most infectious - after seven days.
Once a case is confirmed, he said county officials are notified, who then inform the patient.
While Williams spoke of a dangerous but manageable situation with COVID-19, former state Republican Sen. Rob Schaaf - who said he's now a physician with Corizon, but was not speaking Tuesday before the committee on behalf of Corizon or the Department of Corrections - forecast a decidedly more apocalyptic scenario, more in line with a repeat of the 1918 so-called "Spanish Flu" H1N1 global pandemic that killed at least 50 million people worldwide, including approximately 675,000 people in the U.S.
Corizon Health is the contractor the Department of Corrections uses to provide medical care to inmates.
Schaaf said strict quarantine measures were necessary to prevent the spread of COVID-19: "The only way to do it is the way China did it."
He added he would like to have it considered that nonviolent offenders and those with little of their sentences left be furloughed.