Parson says there is no way to enforce ‘personal responsibility’ amid upward trend in COVID-19 cases

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

Gov. Mike Parson again pointed to the personal responsibility of Missourians to help in the state's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

This comes as Missouri set a new record of new cases on Thursday of 553, citing a delay in reporting by the major testing laboratory Quest Diagnostics.

Thursday's increase would have been 393 without the Quest cases, which is higher than the average of 359 for the past seven days.

Dr. Randall Williams, head of the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services, said at the briefing that about 13,000 tests were delayed. Quest did not report tests from Sunday through Wednesday until Thursday.

Parson reiterated that the increase can be attributed to regional outbreaks and more testing.

ABC 17 News asked Parson what he would tell Missourians who may be concerned with the upward trend in cases.

"One, you gotta avoid that if you have that concern out there you gotta stay away from places with crowds and stuff," Parson said

"I don't think that you are going to be able to go out there and control that everyone stays six feet apart," Parson said. "We can sit up here every day and recommend it, recommend it, say to take all the precautions that you need, but again people are going to have to take that upon themselves"

He said with the expanded testing, the state is finding younger people are getting infected. There is concern about that population spreading the virus to more at-risk people, according to Parson.

"It's a situation we have to get through and make sure we are using common sense and don't put ourselves at risk if you don't have to," Parson said.

Dr. Williams said the average for positive tests over the last seven days is about 4 percent. However, he said the novel coronavirus is still a problem, with the state continuing to send the antiviral drug remdesivir to hospitals.

Some of those doses went to Boone County, Williams said.