Yesterday St Tammany Health System reported their hospital had 16 patients in COVID care among an adult census of 170.
They referred to it as a concerning turn from recent days of zero, one or a few COVID patients in their care. Also, the patients presenting to their facilities with COVID are consistently unvaccinated.
STHS reminds everyone that COVID is preventable with vaccination. They said the virus replicates and mutates by spreading from person to person. Vaccinating the local population stops the spread of COVID-19 and its variants, including the highly contagious Delta variant.
Now the dominant strain in the U.S., Delta is responsible for 59% of new cases in Louisiana due to an overall low vaccination rate, second only to Mississippi, with the lowest vaccination rate in the country.
STHS says Delta is twice as contagious as COVID-19 and evades the antibodies patients developed surviving an earlier COVID infection. Vaccines consistently show efficacy against the virus and its variants in tests by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.
The health system finished by saying the more vaccinated people in the community who are no longer hospitable hosts, means the less effectively COVID-19 can spread locally.
