NEW ORLEANS — The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Louisiana is sharply increasing as thousands of new cases of the virus are reported daily.
The Louisiana Department of Health reported 9,378 new cases of the virus on Wednesday, one of the highest single-day increases of cases since the pandemic began.
COVID-19 hospitalizations also increased by 145 patients on Tuesday to a total of 659 people hospitalized across the state with the virus. About 77 percent of those patients were unvaccinated.
Louisiana reported fewer than 200 COVID-19 hospitalizations just two weeks prior.
“Since [Dec. 16], COVID-19 hospitalizations have more than tripled,” the LDH said. “Vaccines protect you against hospitalization and death from COVID-19.”
The state health department said that the highly infectious COVID-19 Omicron variant was “surging” through the state.
The LDH also reported six new deaths due to the virus since Tuesday. In total, 14,983 people have died due to the virus in Louisiana since March 2020.
Dr. Jeffrey Elder, Emergency Medicine Director for LCMC Health, said he is not surprised by the quick increase in COVID cases in the midst of the Omicron surge.
"We know it's extremely contagious and in other places like South Africa and Europe, they saw extremely fast upticks in positivity and I think the other thing we have going against us right now is the holiday season so a bunch of people were around each other last weekend," Dr. Elder said. "We hope as we've seen in places like South Africa, while we see that uptick in positivity go very high very fast, at some point we plateau and it comes down very fast. That's the goal."
Even with the quick increase in hospitalizations, Dr. Elder said he sees milder cases.
"The hospitalizations aren't keeping up with the huge number of positive cases so that's a good thing. That probably has to do a lot with immunity that people have thanks to vaccinations," Dr. Elder said.
As people plan to ring in the New Year, Dr. Elder warns large gatherings will help COVID numbers climb.
"I would ask people to avoid large groups. Mask up when you are around others who don't live in your household including if you are outdoors and shoulder to shoulder with other people," he said.
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