With just two days before Louisiana enters Phase One of the White House plan to reopen the economy, the state today report 612 new cases of COVID-19.
That's the highest number in weeks.
According to the Louisiana Department of Health, more than half of today's number are old cases being reported for the first time.
"Today, the Department reports 612 new cases, of which 317 came from labs that are new to reporting. These labs previously have not reported and are now reporting all their historic lab results electronically," LDH stated in a news release.
"This means 295 of the 612 new cases came from the rest of the regular reporting across the state," LDH said, concluding: "We expect to see more labs across the state onboarding in a similar fashion as we work to quickly ramp up testing across the state and ensure the state has the most comprehensive data on testing."
The number of deaths in the state increased by 34 today.
Governor John Bel Edwards also said there was an error yesterday in the reported number of patients in hospitals. Instead of the 1,320 reported, it should have shown 1,245 -- a decrease of 65 compared to Monday. Today's number of 1,194 patients hospitalized reflects a drop of 51 from yesterday's adjusted number to today.




