Vice President Pence confirmed on Saturday that Louisiana will receive an additional 200 ventilators from the federal Strategic National Stockpile in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Edwards announced today.
With this commitment, Louisiana will have received a total of 350 ventilators from SNS. They are expected to arrive soon.
"We are grateful to both President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence for keeping Louisiana at the forefront of this fight against COVID-19 and appreciate them understanding the necessity of these ventilators for the survival of our people, especially in light of today's sobering numbers. I spoke to the Vice President this morning and reiterated Louisiana's ongoing needs," said Gov. Edwards. "Based on our modeling, we know that we will exceed our capacity to deliver health care to those who need it, first in the New Orleans area, but because of these ventilators and others that we are sourcing around the world, we will be able to prolong that inevitable day and have fewer people go with unmet medical needs.
"However, the degree to which we are able to prevent overwhelming our hospitals depends on people's compliance of the Stay at Home Order and other mitigation measures," Gov. Edwards said. "We know that social distancing efforts work and will in fact flatten the curve. I am imploring all of our people to stay home, slow the spread and save lives."
In addition to the ventilators, Louisiana is getting several hundred thousand surgical gowns for the medical community in the Greater New Orleans area.
To date, Louisiana has received a total of 553 ventilators. The first shipment from SNS of 150 ventilators was announced on March 30 and arrived days later.
150 - SNS (an additional 200 are expected soon)
400 - Private vendors
3 - Louisiana National Guard
As of Saturday, the number of cases in Louisiana increased by 2,199 to 12,496 total. There have been 409 deaths (an increase of 39 since Saturday). Visit the Louisiana Department of Health's website for daily updates and other information.
Residents can sign up for updates from the Governor's office by texting LACOVID to 67283 and visiting coronavirus.la.gov.
