During his press conference yesterday Governor John Bel Edwards and Louisiana officials said there is reason to believe the state is nearing a peak in new COVID-19 cases fueled by the omicron variant.
At the same time, they warned that even after the latest surge breaks, the risk of infection will remain exceptionally high.
For a second week in a row, Louisiana saw a decrease in the share of emergency room patients exhibiting COVID-19-like illness.
The percent of tests coming back positive dropped even as the state administered a record number of tests.
Louisiana counted 70 coronavirus outbreaks last week, the most since the pandemic began. Half of those occurred in retail settings where masks were not worn, prompting Edwards to reiterate the importance of wearing masks.
Since the start of January, 199 children have been admitted to the hospital with COVID-19. (Most of those patients were younger than 4 and not ineligible for vaccination.) Reinfections from COVID-19 have skyrocketed. There have been 47,342 reinfections since the pandemic began, with 1,875 new reinfections included in Thursday’s update. Dr Joseph Kanter said booster shots will help prevent reinfection.
