Governor Edwards asked Louisiana residents not to gather outside their household for Christmas this year.
Edwards said if you are planning on having a regular Christmas, you are making a big mistake. He says every single parish in the state is experiencing incredibly high levels of community spread.
“You really can’t have gatherings of any size without a substantial likelihood that one or more people there are going to have COVID-19 and they are going to be contagious,” said Edwards.
State officials are concerned that adding a post-Christmas surge on top of our current post-Thanksgiving surge could start to overwhelm our healthcare capacity.
He also shot down the idea that you can have a safe, multigenerational gathering by having everyone involved take a COVID test beforehand.
“A test is a snapshot and you may have already been exposed and in the process of developing the disease but you don’t test positive because you are not shedding enough virus at the time that you are tested,” said Edwards.
The current Phase Two order is set to expire Friday. Edwards said to expect, at the very least, that the current level of restrictions will be extended into 2021.
“If you just look at the data that we have been presenting you should know that we are not going to be lessening restrictions for sure,” said Edwards.
A White House Coronavirus Task Force report shows overall test positivity appears to be decreasing in Louisiana even as total numbers of new cases hold steady.
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