St. Mary region 'pops up on the radar' for spread of COVID-19
The Department of Health region that includes St. Mary Parish "popped up on the radar" Wednesday as the area where the spread of COVID-19 is happening at the state's highest rate, Gov. John Bel Edwards said in his daily press conference.
Two of the parishes in the region rank in the top 15 counties in the United States in the COVID-19 death rate. One, St. John the Baptist Parish, has the highest death rate per 100,000 people in the nation.
Edwards called the chart containing the death rate statistics "the most disturbing graph I have seen."
The state's Region 3 covers St. Mary, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. James, St. Charles and St. John the Baptist. Together, they contain 497 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 from a combined population of about 429,000. The region now has the most rapid growth of COVID-19 among the nine regions.
St. John, where 13 people have died, has a COVID-19 death rate of 27.5 per 100,000 residents, the highest among U.S. counties.
"For a parish that size, that's very troubling," Edwards said. "It shows we have a lot of work to do across the state of Louisiana."
St. Charles ranked sixth among U.S. counties with a death rate of 11.3 per 100,000. Jefferson Parish (13.1) ranks fifth, and Ascension (4.8) ranks 14th.
No deaths have been reported in St. Mary or Assumption. Seven people have died in St. Charles. Four people each have died in St. James and Lafourche, and one person died in Terrebonne.
The governor made another plea for residents to comply with social distancing, to stay home, to wash hands frequently with soap and water and to follow mitigation measures to slow the spread of the disease and avoid a sudden rush of patients that will overwhelm area hospitals.
The search for ventilators, which can keep alive people who suffer from the severe respiratory problems that may accompany that disease, goes on.
Edwards said the 150 ventilators promised to Louisiana by President Donald Trump from a national strategic stockpile have been delivered and are being distributed by the National Guard.
But the number of people hospitalized in Louisiana is approaching 1,500, about a third of whom are on ventilators. The number of new COVID-19 cases has risen about 20% in each of the last two days.
"Right now, we expect that people will die because they can't receive the care they need," Edwards said.
That makes it vital to take measures to prevent the spread of the disease, the governor said.
"How much worse it gets will depend on us," Edwards said. "And by us I mean each and every one of us."