NEW ORLEANS — Gov. John Bel Edwards is renewing his current COVID-19 restrictions on businesses and activities, and he's warning that the holidays threaten to exacerbate Louisiana’s latest coronavirus surge.
The Democratic governor's announcement Tuesday came as Louisiana reached its highest number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients since April. Edwards' rules were toughened in late November. They were set to expire Wednesday, but Edwards is renewing them through Jan. 13.
“It remains a very perilous situation for the state with respect to COVID,” the governor said.
Edwards previously said he did not plan on easing restrictions before Christmas.
The start of vaccinations has offered hope about the pandemic's end, but it remains months before widespread immunizations will be available. About 22,000 hospital workers and EMS employees in Louisiana have received their first of two vaccinations so far. That's according to the state health department, who plans to release new data on the vaccination rollout every Tuesday and Thursday.
"We are working to get more of our vulnerable populations immunized," Edwards said.
Louisiana estimates that 135,000 frontline healthcare workers and 80,000 nursing home and long-term care facility residents and staff will receive doses in Phase 1A of the rollout.
The state has also started receiving shipments of a second coronavirus vaccine. Gov. John Bel Edwards’s office said Louisiana is expecting to receive 79,500 doses of the Moderna vaccine this week in addition to more than 28,000 Pfizer vaccine doses. Nearly 44,000 Moderna doses arrived Monday.
The news comes as COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state continue to climb. On Tuesday, the LDH reported that 1,647 patients have been hospitalized with COVID-19 across the state, nearing triple the amount seen at the start of November.
The state health department also reported an additional 3,705 new cases, and 51 new deaths from the virus since Monday. In total, 290,960 cases and 7,158 deaths have been reported since the outbreak began in early March.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
