Louisiana would possibly be taking the turn of the coronavirus outbreak that began last June. Cases appear to be shrinking and hospitals are seeing a decrease in the number of patients with COVID-19.
“It’s too early to say whether Louisiana has overcome COVID’s most recent wave, but there are several encouraging signs,” said Steven Procopius, policy director at the Louisiana Public Affairs Research Council. “New instances and hospitalizations have been declining for at least two weeks.”
The average number of seven days of new instances appears to have peaked at 2602 on July 27, according to the COVID Monitoring Project. By Tuesday, that number had been reduced to 1,238.
“I’d like to expect Louisiana [to be over], but I’m not comfortable saying it,” said Susan Hassig, professor of epidemiology at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. “It is encouraging to see that the rate of positivity does not increase even if the number of tests decreases. That would possibly mean we’re limiting.”
The positivity rate, the percentage of positive cases discovered among the new tests, has remained above 10% since the end of June, according to the Louisiana Department of Health. It fell from about 13% at the end of July to 10.3% on Friday. The World Health Organization advises governments not to reopen their economies until the positivity rate is 5% or less for two weeks.
Louisiana does not report any new tests on Saturdays. Hassig said this gives knowledge-gathering staff a break.
This is the time for the coronavirus outbreak in Louisiana, the first to arrive in March. The first strongly attributed to Mardi Gras’ birthday party in New Orleans last February. Much of the increase was concentrated in the New Orleans metropolitan area. As business grew, Governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, imposed an order to stay at home.
On May 15, Edwards let the order expire and allowed up to business to reopen, adding restaurants and bars. As the instances multiplied, Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Weston Broome ordered instances on July 1 to demand the use of a mask on her premises. On July 11, Edwards issued a statewide mask arrest warrant and closed the bars. At the time of the outbreak, more cases were experienced in rural areas.
“I think the number of cases has decreased after our governor implemented the statewide masking mandate,” said Susanne Straif-Bourgeois, professor of epidemiology at the LSU Center for Health Sciences.
Hassig suggests that the state mandate is only partially responsible.
“At about the same time, companies like Home Depot and Walmart also introduced mask guarantees,” he said.
Hospitals are seeing a decrease in the number of patients with COVID-19.
“In the third week of July, we saw about 70 new admissions to COVID according to the day,” said Dr. Jeffery Elder, Director of Emergency Management at LCMC Health. “But then we closed, and last week we saw the numbers being transmitted, and we’re just over 50 instances per day.”
Hospitalizations at COVID-19 in Louisiana last longer on July 31, when they climbed to 1546, 22 more than the day before. That number has declined every day from August 1 to 1335 on Tuesday. The peak of 1600 reached July 27, according to the COVID follow-up project.
“We received an average of 75 COVID-19 patients according to July,” said Brian Crawford, Executive Director of the Willis-Knighton Health System. “We’re going to decline from August 5, and today we’re in 63 patients.”
But he added that they did come out of the woods.
“We’re getting ready for the upcoming flu season,” he said. “My is tired and right now I have 30 nurses with COVID.”
There are also considerations that the next school year may lead to an increase in cases.
“Cases are low right now, but schools are starting out, most of them are training a hybrid method,” Straif-Bourgeois said. “Therefore, it will be very attractive to see if the number of epidemics related to schools and higher education will increase as a result of increased exposure.”