St. Mary's deadliest month for COVID-19 ends

The first Louisiana Office of Public Health COVID-19 report of September shows more signs that the fourth wave of coronavirus cases may have peaked.

But St. Mary will look back at August as the deadliest month of the pandemic so far.

The number of St. Mary COVID-related deaths rose to 187 as of Wednesday, the first OPH report since Friday. In all, 40 St. Mary people died during the month.

The month opened with six COVID deaths among parish residents in 72 hours beginning Aug. 1.

More than 800 new COVID cases have been reported since Aug. 12. But in the five days before the midday Wednesday report, only 83 new cases were reported, although the approach of Hurricane Ida interrupted testing and reporting. The pandemic case count is 7,865.

The St. Mary positivity rate, the percentage of tests returning positive results, was at 14.6% in the week ending Aug. 18. The incidence rate, an average daily count of new cases per 100,000 residents, was down by nearly 19% that week.

After the highly infectious Delta COVID variant was confirmed in Louisiana in early July, St. Mary was one of the first two parishes to be characterized as being at "highest risk" based on the positivity and incidence rates.

Despite six weeks of unrelenting bad news about COVD in the parish, St. Mary's vaccination rate has grown by less than 5 percentage points to 33.88%.

Statewide, 12,380 new COVID cases and 223 deaths were reported for the five days leading to midday Wednesday.

The number of people in Louisiana hospitals fell by more than 100 a day over that span, falling to 2,447.

Fourth-surge hospitalizations peaked at more than 3,000 last month, leading hospital and public health officials to warn that overcrowding threatened care for patients with other health conditions or injuries as well as those infected with COVID.

In response to the Delta-fueled rise in cases and hospitalization, Gov. John Bel Edwards imposed a mask mandate for those indoors in public spaces, including schools.

Anti-mask protests broke up meetings of a legislative committee and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and more protests followed moves by private enterprises, including Ochsner Health System, to require employees to be vaccinated or undergo frequent testing.