Governor John Bel Edwards gave a recommendation on how the public should handle a business if they are not enforcing social distancing and mask recommendations. During his monthly “Ask the Governor’s” show on Wednesday, a caller asked Edwards asked why the state can not mandate mask wearing or social distancing.
The governor says under Phase 2 guidelines, it is mandatory for business owners and their employees who are interacting with the public to have masks on.
“If you go to a restaurant or to any business and you do not believe that the business is not conducting itself in a way so that it is safe, don’t patronize that business,” says Edwards.
The governor believes his recommendation would lead to more compliance. He says it would be difficult to enforce a requirement for the public to wear a mask.
Edwards made the comments in light of recent jumps in positive COVID cases. He says the good news is the increased case numbers are likely the result of increased testing capacity.
“The percentage of positive cases that we have relative to the overall number of test that we are administering is well below ten percent, which is the goal of the World Health Organization,” says Edwards.
Hospitalizations are also up on average over the past four days. Edwards says despite that increase Louisiana is still nowhere close to where it was in early April according to the data. Edwards says the state has metrics it closely follows to track where we are.
“Trends that indicate that you could be in trouble when it comes to having enough ICU beds, and acute care beds, and ventilators, we are nowhere near that in our state,” says Edwards.
Edwards did also note that recent spikes in cases for neighboring states indicate the virus will not be slowed by hot weather.
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