COVID-19 case, body counts continue to climb as state curtails updates on clusters

Published 11:58 am Friday, April 3, 2020

UPDATED 2:50 p.m. — The Louisiana Department of Health daily update Friday showed the number of COVID-19 cases in the state crossing 10,000 as the number of deaths attributed to the disease approached 400.

The total of identified cases in the state is at 10,297, a rise of 1,147 from Wednesday’s total of 9,150 — a 13 percent increase in the last 24 hours. The number of recorded deaths sat at 370, an increase of 60, or 19 percent.

In Iberia Parish, the total of identified cases rose Friday to 78, a 16 percent increase from 67 on Thursday. The report also added two additional COVID-19 related deaths in the parish, bringing the total to three. The parish saw its first COVID-19 related death Wednesday. 

One sign of the increased attention to the state’s stay-at-home order and social distancing efforts is the establishment of controlled entrance and exit lines at the Walmart in New Iberia, where employees now watch customers entering and exiting the store through a lane of taped arrows and orange cones. According to one store employee, workers were told the retailer will implement temperature checks for employees reporting to work next week.

St. Martin Parish saw its cases rise from 58 to 69, an increase of 19 percent. That total includes three COVID-19-attributed deaths which were reported last week.

In St. Mary Parish, the number of cases rose from 42 on Thursday to 47 in today’s report, or a 12 percent increase in 24 hours. There have been no reported COVID-19 deaths in the parish as of Friday.

Lafayette Parish saw an increase to 276 identified cases, a 12 percent increase from Thursday’s 247 cases. Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory confirmed the second death in Lafayette Parish from the disease at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. The parish reported its first death related to COVID-19 a week ago.

New Orleans is at 3,476 cases, up 11 percent from 3,148 on Thursday. The parish logged 23 additional deaths overnight, climbing to 148. The Jefferson Parish case count has risen 11 percent to 2,495 from 2,178 on Wednesday, with 85 deaths.

Even as the numbers rise statewide, LDH is pulling back on some of the information it is releasing to the public. 

According to the LDH update Friday afternoon, COVID-19 cases have been reported in 61 of the 436 nursing homes and long-term living facilities in Louisiana. But the department will no longer publish which homes are host to clusters of COVID-19 cases.

Within nursing homes, 261 patients have been reported to have COVID-19, with 60 deaths reported among home residents. 

In many cases, according to LDH, health care providers outside of the long-term care facility test and diagnose residents with COVID-19. Facilities have begun self-reporting positive cases to the Department of Health.  

As with many other pieces of information regarding the growth of COVID-19 in the state, LDH is again limiting the data released on nursing homes. As of Friday, the department said it will no longer release the names of individual homes where clusters have developed. Instead, it will update the number of nursing homes with COVID-19 cases, the number of nursing home residents who are confirmed to have COVID-19 and the number of deaths among these residents. Those updates will be given only two days a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays.

The state has also been very close-lipped abut the specifics of where positive cases identifications or deaths have occurred, listing each only by parish. Other states have listed the number of positive case reports and the number of deaths by municipality, making for a much more detailed picture of how COVID-19 is growing in a community.

The number of hospitalized patients statewide has also grown. Currently there are 1,707 patients in hospital beds across the state, with 535 of them requiring ventilators to breathe, an increase of 28. That is up from 1,639 patients, 507 on ventilators Thursday.

Gov. John Bel Edwards said earlier in the week that if Louisiana’s number of cases continues to grow at this rate and the state is unable to flatten the curve, the New Orleans area could run out of ventilators by Sunday and hospital beds by April 12. 

The state health department has added a section to its report tracking the number of hospital beds, ventilators and intensive care beds available in each region. None are at capacity yet, but the state is expected to hit its maximum resource demand until late next week. Projections from a team at Washington State University show the state hitting its peak resource use on April 10, with its peak deaths coming on April 12, with 85 dead that day.

The state’s reference laboratory has performed 4,037 tests as of Wednesday’s report. Commercial laboratories have added another 49,608 tests.

The current number of Louisiana COVID-19 cases identified in the 50-59 age range, the largest group of confirmed cases, rose Thursday to 2,178 — including 49 fatalities. In the 40 to 49 age group, the number of cases has risen to 1,906 with 23 deaths reported. In the 60 to 69 age group, there were 1,854 cases reported and 59 deaths. The 70 and above group case count rose to 1,657 cases. The number of deaths in that group rose to 224 — the largest number of fatalities for any age group and more than the number of deaths in all other groups combined.

There are 1,647 identified cases in the 30-39 age group, and 11 deaths. The 18 to 29 age group has 981 cases, up from 878, and three reported deaths. The under 18 group has 74 cases total, with one death reported.

Women continue to make up the largest part — 54 percent — of the identified COVID-19 cases in the state. Men make up 40 percent, with 6 percent listed as unknown or other.