Tuesday update: The state health department reports that COVID hospitalizations rose by 83 on Tuesday to 1,974. The all-time high for hospitalization in Louisiana is 1,991 set on April 12th. LDH also reports 50 new fatalities bringing the statewide number of confirmed COVID deaths to 7,241. A total of 56,452 vaccines have been initiated.
On Monday, the state reported 1,891 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, that’s 100 less than the highest number of 1,991 on April 12th. State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter said hospital CEOs will have a call with the Governor today on their current ability to provide care for COVID patients.
“The Governor has been very clear that the red line for him that would force his hand so to say and have to go back to more restrictive measures, even than we what have now, would be the hospitals saying that they can no longer provide quality care,” said Kanter.
Kanter said hospitals across the state are extremely busy as opposed to those in only in the New Orleans area last spring. He said it’s been challenging for hospitals to find space for COVID patients.
“It’s been more challenging for smaller hospitals to transfer complex patients into a tertiary receiving center and that’s not good, it that has ramifications,” said Kanter.
At this time hospitals are still performing surgeries and are not turning patients away but Kanter said that could change depending on the number of properly staffed beds following the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
“We haven’t had to do Crisis Standard of Care or to really triage care, but if we don’t turn this around quickly, we might have to,” said Kanter.
Crisis Standard of Care provides a framework for determining who is prioritized to receive scarce resources.
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