Governor considering mask mandate as COVID cases rise quickly

Gov. John Bel Edwards is considering a new mask mandate as new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to rise sharply and hospitals are calling for help, he said in a Friday press conference.

The governor said he'll listen to public officials before making that decision. If a new mandate comes, he said, it will probably look like what those officials are already strongly recommending: wear masks in indoor public places, even if you're vaccinated.

The news that COVID-19 is spreading faster in Louisiana than anywhere else seems to be bringing people into vaccination sites. The number of daily first shots is at 10,000, up from 2,000 only two weeks ago.

But the state's rate is still lagging. About 1.9 million of Louisiana's 4.5 million people are vaccinated.

The vaccination rates in St. Mary, St. Martin and Assumption are all hovering near 30%

"The Delta variant is an absolute game-changer, superimposed as it is in Louisiana on a state that is not sufficiently vaccinated," Edwards said.

According to the most recent numbers:

--1,740 COVID-positive people were hospitalized Friday, a sevenfold increase in a month. The number exceeds the peak during the first two COVID waves and is on course to top the Jan. 7 peak of 2,069 hospitalizations within a few days, Public Health Officer Dr. Joseph Kanter said Thursday.

Forty-five Louisiana hospitals have asked for government help in obtaining the staff members needed to open new beds, Edwards said. The Louisiana Department of Health is working on a plan to open 171 new beds.

In the meantime, Kanter asked people who want to be tested or have mild symptoms they believe to be from COVID to look for care at places other than hospitals, especially hospital emergency rooms.

"They have to preserve sufficient capacity to care for patients who are walking in about to die," Kanter said. "That's the choice they're having."

In Department of Health Region 3, which stretches from St. Mary to St. John the Baptist, 68 of 78 available ICU beds were occupied Friday, according to the Office of Public Health.

--Thirty-one COVID deaths were reported Friday, the most since March 10.

--One key indicator, the percentage of people arriving at emergency rooms with COVID-like symptoms, is at 11.7%, the highest level of the pandemic.

Canter said the strain on emergency rooms is increased by a simultaneous surge in the number of people infected with RSV, a respiratory illness that arrived unusually early this year.

--Louisiana's incidence rate, a seven-day average of daily new COVID cases per 100,000 members of the population, is at 349, up 900% in a month.

The incidence rate in St. Mary was at 580 per 100,000 for the week ending July 21.

--The percentage of COVID tests returning positive results is at 13%. In St. Mary, the positivity rate was at 16.2% for the week ending July 21.

The rise in new COVID infections shows no signs of slowing down, Kanter said.

"It is unbelievable to be back where we are right now," he said. "But we've been here three times before, and we know how to get out of this."

Public health officials say Delta's ease of transmission and its ability to generate vastly larger amounts of virus in the body than earlier variants explain why it is spreading so rapidly.

Kanter said the age groups with the fastest growth in new cases are 18- to 29-year-olds and those under 18. The average age of people hospitalized with COVID has fallen from 64 to 54 since Delta arrived, he said.

More than 90% of new infections and hospitalizations and 85% of deaths are among the unvaccinated. People who are vaccinated are 25 times less like to be hospitalized with COVID and eight times likely to be infected.

But Kanter said new information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that vaccinated people are capable of infecting others at about the same rate as unvaccinated people.

Edwards and Kanter said they were encouraged by the recent growth in daily vaccinations.

"It's OK to change your mind," Kanter said. "I change my mind all the time. Scientists change their mind all the time."