Louisiana Reinstates Indoor Mask Mandate as Hospitals Fill

Aug. three, 2021 — Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Monday that the statewide indoor mask mandate would restart on Wednesday to overcome the modern surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations because of to the extremely contagious Delta variant.

The mask mandate will utilize to ages five and more mature in indoor public locations, irrespective of vaccination position. It will keep on being in result until finally at minimum Sept. one.

Edwards lifted the statewide mask mandate in April. On Monday, he pointed to data that exhibit Louisiana has the best number of new COVID-19 cases for each capita in the country.

“This is poor. And it is not this poor anywhere else in the country these days,” he explained all through a news briefing with state healthcare facility leaders, according to The Associated Push.

“It has turn out to be incredibly distinct that our present-day tips on their individual are not solid adequate to deal with Louisiana’s fourth surge of COVID,” he explained. “In truth, no person should really be laboring underneath the misapprehension that this is just a further surge. This is the worst a person we’ve experienced.”

The announcement came as the state’s largest healthcare facility — Our Lady of the Lake Healthcare Heart in Baton Rouge — ran out of beds and termed in a catastrophe healthcare assistance workforce to assist with the surge in sufferers. COVID-19 hospitalizations have jumped from 36 to 155 sufferers in two months.

“There are no beds still left,” Catherine O’Neal, MD, the chief healthcare officer for the healthcare facility, explained on Monday.

“These are the darkest days of this pandemic,” she explained. “We are no for a longer time offering sufficient treatment to these sufferers.”

Edwards noted that instances would develop even worse in the brief time period and that the state would possible report the best number of COVID-19 hospitalizations so considerably all through the pandemic on Tuesday. The number of sufferers is close to two,000, which is seven instances the number of sufferers a thirty day period ago, the AP described.

Edwards and O’Neal urged unvaccinated residents to get a shot to protect against severe health issues, hospitalization, and loss of life. Louisiana has a person of the lowest vaccination premiums in the country, the AP described, which has authorized the Delta variant to distribute among unvaccinated residents. About 43% of the state inhabitants has gained at minimum a person vaccine dose, and 37% is fully vaccinated.

During his presentation, Edwards also encouraged folks to abide by other precautions, this sort of as keeping away from crowded settings, having examined immediately after COVID-19 publicity, and doing the job remotely when feasible.

“We have the instruments we will need to sluggish the distribute of COVID-19 in our communities and preserve lives, and I am pleading with unvaccinated Louisianans to get their shot as quickly as they can to secure themselves,” he explained. “We can end this nightmare, but it is going to acquire all of us doing the job together to do it.”