New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell announces she is moving the city into a modified Phase 3 which eases some COVID-19 restrictions.
The city's Phase 3 restrictions will go into effect as of March 12, at 6:00 A.M.
The new guidelines allow most businesses like salons, movie theaters, museums, and restaurants in New Orleans to increase their capacity to 75%. Bars and breweries will move to 50% capacity indoors. Concert and music halls can increase to 75% but cap at 250 people. These restrictions closely follow the governor's Phase 3 restrictions. What will be more restrictive in New Orleans is the number of people allowed to gather. Gathering sizes will be limited to 75 people indoors and 150 people outdoors.
Click here to view New Orleans' modified Phase 3 guidelines.
At her media conference on Wednesday, Mayor Cantrell says as of today, the case counts, transmission rate, and positivity rate in New Orleans have all been in a decline for over six weeks. She says case counts are below 50 cases per day, the positivity rate is 1.5%, and the transmission rate is well below 1.0%.
Mayor Cantrell notes, as of Tuesday, there are 28,782 COVID-19 cases in New Orleans, 769 deaths, in the city; the lowest in Louisiana.
Cantrell contributes those data numbers to the hard work New Orleanians had put-in by following the mayor’s stricter covid guidelines and the willingness to get vaccinated.
“Our city is number one in the state in getting our people vaccinated,” said Cantrell. “That is a huge win and something we should all be proud of but continue to promote because again this is our way of getting back to the things we love to do in our city and with one another.”
According to the mayor’s data, 21.4% of Orleans Parish residents have received their first vaccine dose with nearly 12% of residents are fully vaccinated.