Louisiana has added nearly 1,000 COVID hospitalizations since moving into Phase Two June 5th.
Assistant Health Secretary Dr. Alex Billioux says that’s concerning healthcare providers who are already dealing with an influx of patients who weren’t being treated during the stay at home order.
“They are seeing hospital capacities becoming more and more strained not just because of COVID but also because of people who delayed care because of concerns of COVID now coming in sicker and needing admission to the hospital,” says Billioux.
Louisiana now has 1581 COVID hospitalizations as of the Wednesday update, nearly triple our low point of 542 June 13th.
In response, Governor Edwards issued a statewide mask mandate and closed bars last Monday. Billioux says they’re hoping to see results from that as early as next week.
“We are hopeful that with those measures we will begin to see within a weeks’ time a leveling off of our cases and hopefully see some decreased pressure on our health systems,” says Billioux.
Some have argued that the recent wave is exaggerated due to increased testing numbers, but Billioux we’re seeing a steady rise in hospitalizations, and the state now has an over ten percent positive rate for COVID tests.
“That is higher than we want to be and shows that we are not just seeing changes in testing what we are seeing is real changes in the number of people who are found positive having COVID when they are tested,” says Billioux.
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