State health department plans news conference as COVID-19 surges

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

Missouri's health department plans to update the public on the state of COVID-19 in the state Friday morning.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services will hold a 9 a.m. news conference on COVID-19. The department's acting director, Robert Knodell, and other department officials are scheduled to be in attendance.

The news conference comes as the state's health care system once more combats a surge in people sick from the virus. Missouri currently leads the nation in people hospitalized with COVID-19. Federal officials put Missouri in a "high" level of transmission, reporting a 12 percent positivity rate. Missouri is averaging more than 1,000 new cases a day for the last week between PCR and antigen tests.

Gov. Mike Parson recently rebuffed an idea from the White House to have health officials go door-to-door to give information to people about coronavirus vaccinations. A team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently helping communities in southwest Missouri dealing with people sick from the Delta variant, a more contagious strain of COVID-19 making its way through the state. Forty-five percent of the state has gotten at least one shot of a vaccine. The state has averaged more than 6,000 vaccinations a day for the last week.