Governor Edwards will announce whether the state will loosen COVID public health restrictions at his 1 PM Tuesday afternoon press conference. All signs point to at least a limited lifting of limitations with the current public health order set to expire Wednesday.
Public Affairs Research Council Policy Director Dr. Steven Procopio said not only are new positive cases down but so is the percent positivity of tests, and total COVID-related hospitalizations.
“I actually try to follow the hospitalizations and positivity rates more so than the tests and both of those things are good and seemingly continuing to improve,” said Procopio.
COVID hospitalizations are down to 629 compared to the over 2,000 we saw in early January.
The Governor never released his official benchmarks for moving the state through different phases but Procopio said our current numbers look like a period when we were in Phase Three restrictions.
“We are about as good as we are doing in that September to November timeframe, but things very quickly got out of hand as people went into Halloween and started to interact,” said Procopio.
During that period total COVID hospitalizations sat between 800 and roughly 500.
Last week Edwards mentioned the state’s trajectory looked promising and Procopio said the data indicates a cautious loosening of restrictions is justified right now.
“The big caveat is whether or not there is a variant of the virus out there that will suddenly be immune to the vaccines or have even more transmitability,” said Procopio.
657,000 Louisianans have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine.
