NEW ORLEANS - After two days in which the rate of new coronavirus infections appeared to stabilize here, new figures showed it had shot up 30% in the last 24 hours, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
In one day, the state’s cases zoomed past the 4,000 mark to more than 5,000, while the death count attributed to the bug increased to 239.
The state, which is one of the hardest hit by the virus that first infected people last year in Wuhan, China, had seen increase rates of 8-13% the previous two days. Gov. John Bel Edwards has repeatedly cited the effort to flatten that curve as the most important in terms of the state’s health care capacity.
On Monday, Mr. Edwards predicted Louisiana would be out of ventilators by April 5 and hospital beds by April 12. Like New York City, another epicenter of the virus, the city has planned to build makeshift hospitals in places like the New Orleans Convention Center along the Mississippi River.
Louisiana had 1,355 patients hospitalized as of noon Tuesday, of whom 438 needed ventilators, according to the LDH. That percentage of roughly a third of patients requiring ventilators has remained steady for several days.
• James Varney can be reached at jvarney@washingtontimes.com.
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