Gov. John Bel Edwards held his daily press briefing on Friday about the state's response on COVID-19 where he introduced new modeling charts and data showing how the virus is impacting the state and how social distancing measures are affecting the slow of the spread of the virus.
Louisiana’s modeling data show the state on course to require 2,500 new hospitalizations a day in the New Orleans area by mid-May, if the public does not adhere to COVID-19 mitigation measures like Gov. Edwards’ Stay at Home order, Edwards said.
The governor and the Louisiana Department of Health on Friday shared a product of the state’s COVID-19 modeling that takes into account the governor’s aggressive mitigation measures.
According to the governor, projections are based on modeling that accounts for the rate of hospitalization and death, as well as the capacity of health care facilities and medical surge efforts in each region. Each scenario is based on the number of new people a COVID-19 positive patient infects. In the most favorable scenario, this number is lower, with fewer people being infected and fewer health care resources needed.
Louisiana is now releasing data about hospitalized cases and hospital and ventilator use each day on its COVD-19 dashboard at ldh.la.gov/coronavirus.
The governor said the product of the LDH’s COVID-19 model shows differing scenarios based on how well the public participates in different mitigation efforts. This graph shows projected new hospitalizations per day under four different scenarios in Region 1 (the Greater New Orleans Area). As LDH builds out additional regional projections, it says it will share them with the public.
Watch the governor's full Friday press conference below:
