RSS Feed

New Orleans — The National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health has awarded LSU Health New Orleans Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center a $147,000 supplement to its NCI Community Oncology Research Program grant to create the Louisiana Cancer-COVID-19 Registry with the Louisiana Department of Health.
“Because cancer patients are at increased risk for developing COVID-19 and both cancer and COVID-19 disproportionately affect minority and underserved populations, there is an urgent need to develop a new Louisiana Cancer-COVID-19 Regi-stry to better understand the impact of the current pandemic on cancer patients in the Gulf South Region,” said NCORP principal investigator Dr. Augusto Ochoa, Director of LSU Health New Orleans Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center.
Health care providers are required to report both cancer and COVID-19 diagnoses because these diseases are of such public health importance. LSU Health New Orleans School of Public Health’s Louisiana Tumor Registry will work to link its data on cancer incidence with the Louisiana Department of Health’s COVID-19 Registry.
“The collaboration with Dr. DeAnn Gruber and her team at the Office of Public Health at the Louisiana Department of Health has been outstanding,” said Ochoa.
Data from the new Registry will be used to study the effect of COVID-19 on cancer health disparities in Louisiana and more effectively participate in national clinical studies. The Registry will help determine how COVID-19 impacts cancer health disparities in different populations and in rural vs. urban locations.
“The Louisiana Tumor Registry is very enthusiastic about participating in this effort because we believe the Louisiana Cancer-COVID-19 registry will enhance research to better understand the impact of COVID-19 on cancer diagnosis, treatment, and outcome, and to identify corresponding health disparities for actions,” said Dr. Xiao Cheng Wu, Professor and Director of the LSU Health New Orleans Louisiana Tumor Registry, a program in its School of Public Health. “It may also help to determine the location of coronavirus ‘hot spots.’ This project lines up with our vision to reduce suffering and death from cancer in Louisiana.”
“The LA Cancer-COVID-19 Registry will also better prepare us for a resurgence of COVID-19 or other future pandemics by being able to deploy diagnostic, treatment, or epidemiological trials,” said Ochoa.

BATON ROUGE — October is National Pedestrian Safety Month. The LSU AgCenter offers tips for people interested in active forms of transportation, such as walking and biking:
Choose your route carefully. The best route to walk or bike is usually not the same route you would drive. Look for low-traffic residential streets. Remember, according to state law, bikes can use the full lane.
If you are on a street where it would be dangerous for a vehicle to pass, bike in the middle of the lane. Ask others in your community which roads are the best for biking and walking, and learn from their experience.
“Infrastructure often varies significantly across roadways,” said Charlie Thomas, of Bike Law Louisiana. “Choose the lowest-stress route that serves your destination. The more enjoyable your commute by biking or walking, the more likely you will be to stick with this active and healthy option to get to where you’re going.”
Ultimately, bike and pedestrian safety comes down to building roads and paths that keep everyone safe.
“Streets built to share benefit everyone from safety and equity to economy and quality of life,” said Dan Favre, of Bike Easy. “When streets are designed to be safe for people walking, biking and rolling in wheelchairs, they are safer for people driving as well.”
Speak out to support road infrastructure for all people, especially for parts of your community where people rely on biking, walking and wheelchairs for transportation.
“Get involved with local street and highway projects,” said Mark Martin, of Bike Baton Rouge. “Almost all agencies are required to hold public input meetings. Go to the meetings. Tell the agency representatives what you would like to see.”
To learn more about making active transportation easier in your community, contact Jessica Stroope or email healthy communities@agcenter.lsu.edu.

At least two Tri-City area nursing homes are allowing residents to see in-person visitors after the state adopted guidance from the U.S. Health and Human Services that was issued in mid-September.
Representatives at Legacy Nursing and Rehabilitation of Morgan City and Patterson Health Care Center each confirmed that residents are allowed to receive in-person visitors.
A person who answered the phone at Maison Jardin Senior Living Community in Morgan City Tuesday said no one was available this week to release that information.
The U.S. Health and Human Services released guidelines for nursing home visits on Sept. 17, and Louisiana adopted the guidelines through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services a day later.
Both Patterson and Morgan City facilities conduct outside visits practicing safety protocol, including social distancing and masks.
“It’s modified visitation is what’s happening,” Legacy Morgan City Administrator Jeremy Ryman said. “It’s mostly outside visitation scheduled. It’s not like just walk in and do it.”
Robyn Rideau, social service director at the Patterson Health Care Center, said visitors can schedule visitation with residents during certain hours Monday through Friday.
Visitors at both facilities are screened before they are allowed to visit residents. Rideau said visitors sign a waiver prior to the visit.
“We’ll bring the resident out to them for their scheduled visit,” she said.
Ryman said they do allow some inside visits in Morgan City.
“It’s only on a case-by-case basis based on the resident’s need,” he said.
Before the in-person visits, residents visited with family members at each facility via video chats and visits at their windows. Parades were held at each facility for family members to see their family and friends.
“Of course our activity department did a wonderful job,” Ryman said. “They actually continued activities, practicing social distancing with the residents and kept them very busy to try to keep their mind off of it.”
Since May 18, nursing homes have been submitting weekly reports to the Louisiana Depart-ment of Health on COVID-19 stats in their facilities among residents and staff.
According to the Oct. 14 statistics, the latest available, the Patterson Health Care Center has had a total of 69 COVID-19 cases among residents during the pandemic. Sixty patients have recovered, and there have been nine deaths.
There have been 28 cases among staff at the facility during the pandemic, with all 28 staff members recovering.
At Legacy Nursing and Rehabilitation of Morgan City, there have been 39 cases among residents during the pandemic. Thirty four residents have recovered, and there have been five deaths.
There were 20 cases among staff, and all 20 staff members have recovered.
“We were one of the last of the facilities in the region to have our first case,” Ryman said.
He said that the Morgan City facility practices “very strict infection control guidelines.”
At Legacy Nursing and Rehabilitation of Franklin, which received the most attention locally during the pandemic, there have been 82 cases during the pandemic among residents, with 63 recovering. Nineteen have died.
Also, 26 staff members contracted the virus with all 26 recovering.
No stats were available for Maison Jardin Senior Living Community in Morgan City.
According to the Department of Health, only those facilities that are certified adult care facilities are mandated to report information in this report.
While any cases at other adult residential facilities are not broken down by each facility, the state does share the total of those facilities. It said that 185 adult residential facilities have had at least one COVID case among residents or staff reported, according to its Oct. 14 report.
According to the report, 1,245 COVID-19 cases have been reported among residents, while there have been 146 deaths.
The data, which is released on Wednesdays, can be found on a link at https://ldh.la.gov/index.cfm/page/3965.

Louisiana legislators have approved a bill that would let lawmakers change a governor’s emergency order.
Members of the state House of Representatives and Senate agreed to the amendments to House Bill 4, sending it to Gov. John Bel Edwards’ desk where it may face a veto.
Under current law, either of the Legislature’s chambers can end an emergency order with a majority vote. The statute hasn’t been used and Senate President Page Cortez has suggested it might not hold up in court.
Under House Bill 4, which both bodies approved Tuesday, the governor would retain his ability to issue a state of emergency or disaster declaration, and still could call for a renewal after 30 days. But once the renewal is issued, the speaker of the House, president of the Senate, and the president pro tempore (the second-highest position) of each chamber would be directed to review the renewal.
If at least two of the four officers, including at least one from each body, agree that the renewed proclamation exceeds the governor’s authority or is not narrowly tailored to address the emergency or disaster, lawmakers would send the governor a description of their complaints. Legislative staff then would send ballots to the remaining members of the Legislature, who could cancel the executive order or certain provisions of the order through a majority vote of both chambers.
The bill by Rep. Mark Wright, a Covington Republican, is one of several instruments from Republicans frustrated by Edwards’ management of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some lawmakers want to lift all the restrictions meant to control the spread of the new coronavirus, while others have called for tweaking the orders with legislative input.
Sen. Patrick McMath, the Covington Republican who carried the bill on his side of the Capitol, said some lawmakers are frustrated at what they see as “inconsistencies” in how the COVID-19 mandates apply to different businesses and activities. HB 4 would give legislators “a seat at the table,” he said.
Rep. Blake Miguez, an Erath Republican who has been outspoken about wanting to end the Edwards’ pandemic mandates, said HB 4 doesn’t target any particular governor. He said any governor potentially could become “tyrannical” without the potential to be checked by the Legislature.
Sen. Jay Luneau, an Alexandria Democrat, noted that all of the governor’s actions have been in line with guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the White House’s coronavirus task force.
“It could have been much, much worse than it was,” he said, referring to the COVID-19 death count. Luneau said he wants to get back to normal but doesn’t want to get there by “stepping over a lot of dead bodies.”
Much of the discussion among House members involved Republicans seeking assurance that legislators would retain a single chamber’s ability to end an emergency order. Miguez assured them they would.
Edwards has pointed to the mitigation methods he put in place, which include capacity restrictions on businesses, limitations on crowd sizes, and a requirement to wear face and nose coverings in public, for keeping the pandemic under control.
The governor’s office on Tuesday shared White House data showing Louisiana ranks low nationally and among southern states for recent case growth and the percentage of COVID-19 tests coming back positive.
Edwards has said he would consider any bill that comes to his desk. But he has said that emergencies are not best managed by committee, and that he has no intention of giving up any of the tools he has to deal with the public health emergency.
The administration has been sued by a number of business owners seeking to overturn some or all of the restrictions, though no court has yet ruled against the governor.
The Senate voted 23-13 to send HB 4 back to the House, which voted 54-30 to concur in the Senate’s amendments. Neither vote total would be enough to override a veto. There were 15 House members listed as absent the first time it passed the chamber and 21 absent Tuesday.