Louisiana’s Assistant State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter joined Newell for his recurring weekly segment Thursday afternoon to discuss the latest developments in the battle against COVID-19, preventative measures, and the search for effective treatments or even a vaccine. Taking a measurement of progress this week presents something of a mixed bag.
“I always love how plain-spoken you are, Doctor,” Newell began. “What do you think of the new numbers? Encouraging, discouraging or somewhere inbetween?”“They’re... okay,” Kanter said. “We’ll start with the good news. In the New Orleans region, we are doing very well. We had the fastest growing outbreak in the world in the first few weeks there, and then had a pretty remarkable flattening of the curve and decline, and I’m very thankful for that. We continue to look good, with 74 patients in hospital beds in the New Orleans region - at the beginning of April, that number was over 1,000. Some other parts of the state, we need to watch really closely. Lake Charles, Alexandria, Monroe, you see slight increases that may signify growing spread or increased testing. We’re looking at what’s happening at the hospitals there, seeing if people are presenting with symptoms to get a better picture. There’s a lot more testing being done in congregate facilities like nursing homes. We’re keeping a close watch on those regions, but we still feel good about New Orleans.”
