78 new COVID cases in three parishes; governor calls press conference

The number of new COVID-19 cases in St. Mary, St. Martin and Assumption was up sharply again in Saturday's midday report covering the previous 24 hours.

Statewide, the number of positives and the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 jumped sharply again. Gov. John Bel Edwards scheduled a 2:30 p.m. Saturday press conference, a departure from his usual once-a-week meetings with reporters on Wednesdays.

The big question is likely to be whether Edwards will order mandatory mask usage statewide and, if he does, how it will be enforced.

Mask requirements have become a hot topic in the last couple of days. East Baton Rouge, Orleans and Jefferson have made masks mandatory in public. Shreveport officials issued an order of their own.

But a district court judge stayed the Shreveport mask order. U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Shreveport, accused the city's mayor, Adrian Perkins, of "overreach" and said the mask requirement is an infringement on constitutional liberties.

As the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education prepares to meet next week to discuss the safe reopening of schools, Attorney General Jeff Landry wrote a letter to BESE to say school mask requirements threaten to turn educators into "mask police."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend masks. "To reduce the spread of COVID-19, CDC recommends that people wear cloth face coverings in public settings when around people outside of their household, especially when other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain," according to the CDC website.

In Saturday's report, 37 new positives in St.Mary raised the total since the pandemic began to 741.

St. Martin has 36 new positives for a total of 999.

Assumption has five new positives for a total of 415.

No new deaths were reported in the three parishes, so the death toll remains 39 in St. Mary, 27 in St. Martin and 16 in Assumption.

Statewide:

--2,167 new positives raise the pandemic total to 78,803.

--23 new deaths raise the toll to 3,295.

--The number of people hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment rose by 65 to 1,182. The number of hospitalizations has doubled in a month.

--The number of people on ventilators fell by one to 121.