Governor: State will remain in Phase 2

Gov. John Bel Edwards has extended the state’s modified Phase 2 coronavirus restrictions another 21 days as the third surge of the respiratory illness continues to march through Louisiana.

The extension is effective today. It means businesses remain at 50% occupancy, and gatherings are still limited to 75 people indoors and 150 people outdoors. The statewide mask mandate is also still in effect, Edwards said during a press conference Tuesday.

Despite some improvements, Louisiana remains in a perilous place, Edwards said.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” he said.

The Louisiana Department of Health is now reporting 2,603 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Lincoln Parish since the pandemic began in March. That’s only a 12-case increase over Monday’s numbers, one of the smallest daily jumps Lincoln Parish has seen in several weeks.

Local deaths attributed to COVID-19 rose for the third consecutive day and now stand at 69, with two more deaths probably virusrelated, the LDH dashboard shows.

Statewide, some 7,158 people have died of COVID-19 since March, Edwards said. That includes both confirmed and probable COVID deaths.

Edwards cited data showing while Louisiana may be plateauing in its number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, it is doing so at a higher level than before.

As of Dec. 16, the curve showed 84 days in an upward trajectory of average daily incidence of COVID cases. White House gating criteria statistics released Sunday show the Lincoln Parishinclusive Region 8 with COVID-like illnesses plateauing and total cases across the 12-parish region decreasing, but hospitalizations increasing.

Statewide, more than 1,600 people remained hospitalized Tuesday with COVID-19. That’s slightly higher than the peak of the summer surge that swamped some hospitals across the state, the governor said.

He urged Louisianans to forego traditional holiday travel and gatherings in hopes of curtailing the spread of the virus.

“The risk is just too high for traditional holiday activities,” Edwards said.

Both Edwards and Dr. Joe Kanter, Louisiana’s interim assistant secretary of the Office of Public Health, said the newly released COVID-19 vaccines will be the state’s way out of the pandemic, but that won’t happen immediately.

“There is more COVID circulating around in this state than there has been before,” Kanter said.

“This virus spreads by human behavior. It only spreads if we let it spread.”