According to the most recent COVID-19 dashboard from the Public Affairs Research Council, the state is showing a downward trend of cases, positivity rate, and hospitalizations. PAR President Robert Travis Scott said the numbers are encouraging.
“If you’re going to start seeing a coming out of the surge that we have, and it’s been pretty high, these would be the signs you’d be looking for,” said Scott.
The most recent dashboard was data from January 7th through the 20th.
The positivity rate for the state, which is the rate of how many tests show a positive result for COVID versus negative test results, in the last three days is 6.4 percent according to the PAR dashboard. Scott said that’s an indicator we are on the downside of the most recent surge.
“Which is getting close to the CDC’s target of five percent or less, it’s been a lot higher than that, we’ve had a lot of surge here in the past here, I’d say six to eight weeks,” said Scott.
As for hospitalizations, the PAR dashboard shows levels in the third surge well surpassed the second peak over the summer. The peak was 2,069 on January 8th and as of the 20th, 1,858 were reported. Scott said however hospitalizations in Lake Charles and Lafayette are still concerning.
“Those have been two areas where we really have to keep an eye on, once you get, especially when you get up to that 90-percent, close to that 90-percent level or above then you’re really pressing capacity on your ICU facility,” said Scott.
Scott said there were 48 new confirmed fatalities Wednesday bringing the three-day average to 48.8, he said fatalities are the last number to show a decrease when observing downward trends.
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