Governor announces first step toward reopening economy: Nonemergency medical procedures

Hospitals and other health care providers will be able to begin some non-emergency procedures April 27, Gov. John Bel Edwards said at his daily COVID-19 press briefing.

But Edwards cautioned again that the state isn't ready yet to meet even Phase One of President Donald Trump's Make America Open Again plan for economic restoration. That depends on testing, and Louisiana isn't there yet, either.

Edwards, Department of Health Secretary Courtney Phillips and State Health Officer Jimmy Guidry laid out plans for the move affecting health procedures.

Non-emergency procedures will be allowed provided it is design to alleviate some condition that will grow worse with time or is otherwise time-time sensitive. The provider will have to be set up to practice social distancing, to provide COVID-19 screening or testing, and to have a five-day supply of personal protective equipment.

The rules apply to dental as well as medical procedures.

"Anything that would make the condition worse by waiting any longer is what we're trying to get at," Guidry said.

Further progress depends on the wider deployment of testing. The goal is to perform 140,000 tests in May. State and commercial labs have tested about 141,000 since the pandemic reached Louisiana.

The governor said Louisiana has made big strides in testing.

"Testing is the key to identifying people with COVID-19 and isolating them," Edwards said, "but also doing the contact tracing necessary to identify the people they came into contract with. ... That is the key to reopening the the economy without seeing a surge [in new COVID cases]."

The contact tracing is labor-intensive. Phillips, who took office Friday as the permanent replacement for Rebekah Gee, said she's working on turning other department employees into contact tracers.

There have been other limits on the growth of testing, said Assistant Secretary Alex Billioux. One is a shortage of the swabs needed to collect samples from nasal passages. He said the state is working to see if swabs can be manufactured with 3D printing in Shreveport. Other health care providers are trying to come up with ways to manufacture the pink "transport liquid" in which samples are taken to the labs and the reagents used in the actual sampling.

Edwards said that despite any positive signs in the statistics, Louisiana people must continue to practice social distancing and proper hygiene.

He noted that Monday is the 10th anniversary of the BP oil spill, in which Louisiana faced another kind of disaster and overcame it.

"We are resilient," Phillips said. "We know how to rise up, and we know how to band together."