UPDATED: No new COVID-19 cases in St. Mary; Assumption at 14

The number of St. Mary COVID-19 cases reported by the Louisiana Office of Public Health remained at seven in Sunday's noon website update.

Assumption's case count rose to 14. St. Martin's count remained at 13.

Statewide, the OPH reported 3,540 cases, up 225 from noon Saturday.

The number of COVID-19 fatalities rose by 14 Saturday-Sunday to 151.

The Governor's Office said that one of the Louisiana fatalities is April Dunn, 33, who worked as a disabilities advocate in the state Office of Disability Affairs.

The most troubling number from Sunday's report may have been the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19-related illness. That number rose by nearly 22% in a single day to 1,127 in what public health officials have described as a fight to prevent a sudden spike that overwhelms hospitals and other resources.

On Sunday, Gov. John Bel Edwards and New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell toured a makeshift facility at the Morial Convention Center. In a week, the center will be able to care for 1,000 people who have tested positive but don't require intensive care. Nearby is a 250-bed "personnel housing unit" that will care for people who are awaiting test results.

In a live-streamed press conference Sunday, Edwards said a 60-person federal task force that was to be sent to New Orleans has been diverted elsewhere. But an even bigger group from the U.S. Navy in Jacksonville, Florida, is headed this way to man the personnel housing unit.

Also: 100,000 N95 masks arrived Saturday in Louisiana and have already been distributed to health care providers.

Hospitals are adding intensive care beds: 70 by LCMC, which operations University Medical Center in New Orleans; 96 at Ochsner New Orleans; 120 at Ochsner LSU; and 34 at Baton Rouge General. More have been added at Our Lady of the Lake in Baton Rouge.

But delays continue in acquiring ventilators and personal protection equipment such as protective masks. Louisiana has requested 12,000 ventilators from a federal stockpile and from private vendors and has received only 192 so far, Edwards said.

"I'm making the case as emphatically as I can," Edwards said. "And I have to believe it won't fall on deaf ears."

Hospitals are exploring the use of equipment normally used for anesthesia or the ventilators used by emergency medical technicians, Edwards said.

So far, no hospitals are in immediate danger of reaching their capacity.

Models based on the rate of testing, infection, hospitalization and ventilator use, and on the time patients need to spend in the hospital, led to an earlier prediction that the New Orleans area might reach its capacity April 2. That prediction is now April 4 or 5, the governor said.

"The fact that we have capacity today shouldn't give anyone a false sense of security," he said.

He said the stay at home order he issued earlier this month may have to be extended.

The governor asked reporters to stress that to slow the spread of the virus, people should continue to follow stay at home orders, avoid public gatherings, practice social distancing, wash hands frequently with soap and water, and use hand sanitizer when no soap and water are available.

"We need everybody to do everything they can to slow the spread of this disease," Edwards said.

He also said called people who don't practice social distancing "selfish."

"It is grossly irresponsible for people to flagrantly disregard and violate these social distancing measures we have in place across the state of Louisiana," Edwards said.

Ignoring the public health guidance endangers not just the violators, but their families and the first-responders who may be called in to care for them.