President reaffirms help for La. testing surge

On a day when Dr. Anthony Fauci announced promising results for a COVID-19 treatment, President Donald Trump reaffirmed a commitment to help Louisiana greatly expand coronavirus testing.
“This is the big piece we’ve been looking for,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said Wednesday during a meeting with the president in Washington, “and with that commitment we really feel much better about going forward.”
Adm. Brett Giroir, head of the federal Public Health Service, told Edwards this week that the federal government will provide swabs, transport media and reagents Louisiana will need to boost its testing numbers to 200,000 in May. That’s more tests than Louisiana has performed since the pandemic reached the state.
The increased testing could allow Edwards to lift his stay at home order when it expires May 15, the governor said.
Louisiana still ranks sixth among U.S. states in the rate of infection.
But “we’re in a much, much better place than we were five or six weeks ago,” Edwards said.
Edwards thanked Trump for sending field medical personnel, assigning Navy medical specialists to Louisiana and providing early testing that continues to guide the state’s COVID-19 response.
“We’re excited about the opportunity to have the test kits we need … to get to 200,000,” Edwards said.
The president said it was an honor to work with the state.
Edwards also thanked U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy for their efforts on acquiring ventilators and increasing testing. And he credited Dr. Alex Billioux, the assistant Department of Health secretary who accompanied the governor to Washington, with the work that helped Louisiana slow the spread of COVID-19.
Edwards has come under increasing pressure to reopen Louisiana’s economy since he extended the stay at home order to May 15. Republicans have been calling for an earlier lifting of restrictions.
The current state goal is to meet the Trump administration criteria for a limited Phase One easing of restrictions, allowing more employees to return to the workplace, allowing limited onsite dining in restaurants and allowing some nonessential travel.
At the same press conference at which Trump and Edwards spoke, administration infectious disease expert Fauci announced promising results in a trial of the anti-viral drug remdisivir.
A randomized placebo trial involving more than 1,000 patients in the United States and Europe resulted in an 8% death rate among patients treated with remdisivir compared to 11% in the placebo group. That’s not a statistically significant result, Fauci said.
But the recovery time was 11 days for the remdisivir group compared to 15 days for the control group.
“Although a 31% improvement doesn’t seem like a knockout 100%, it’s a very important proof of concept, because it is showing a drug can block the virus,” Fauci said.
Fauci said he released the preliminary results because ethics rules require the placebo patients to be informed about potentially beneficial results in the remdisivir group.