NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana's coronavirus numbers continued a positive trend Saturday, with the smallest percent increase in cases reported since the outbreak began over a month ago.
The new numbers from the Louisiana Department of Health show 761 new cases and 51 new deaths. Those numbers are increases of just under 4% and 7% respectively.
While the number of deaths is still staggering, the slow increase (three days in a row have had around 50 deaths) indicates that social distancing and stay at home orders throughout the state are effective.
Another promising sign is the hospitalization numbers. Health officials counted 13 more people hospitalized for coronavirus complications. Of the 2,067 hospitalized patients, 470 are on ventilators.
But the number of patients on ventilators has decreased five times in the past week.
Orleans Parish, where the outbreak was first reported and one of the hardest-hit cities in the country, reported only a small increase in cases and six additional deaths Saturday.
That comes after Friday, when a single death was reported in New Orleans.
But the Crescent City, which issued a stay at home order two days before the statewide mandate and received federal funding in the beginning stages of the outbreak for a pilot drive-thru testing program, might be uniquely ahead of Louisiana as a whole, as the percentage of cases in the state outside of New Orleans continues to grow.
Neighboring Jefferson Parish has about 700 fewer confirmed cases and 60 fewer deaths from coronavirus, but has conducted less than half the number of tests as Orleans Parish.
Of course, the good news Saturday comes with asterisks and caveats. Weekends tend to have lower numbers because they're being updated by real people based on human testing efforts.
Generally mid-week numbers are higher.
The data already confirmed what Gov. John Bel Edwards and state health officials had been telling people for weeks: COVID-19 is in all 64 parishes in Louisiana.
Tensas Parish, with a population of about 5,200 people, was the last in the state to report a positive case of coronavirus.
Despite Louisiana dueling New York for the most testing per capita in the nation, Edwards said at a press conference Friday that he wasn't satisfied with the level of testing in the state.
The just over 17,000 tests conducted in New Orleans represent about 4.5% of the city's population.
But an unknown number of residents from other parishes have been tested in New Orleans, where the tests are counted as being from rather than where the person being tested is from.
The rest of the state doesn't have nearly as many people tested. About 2% of the state's 4.66 million people have been tested as of Saturday's numbers.
Even if Louisiana is approaching the apex of the coronavirus outbreak, experts warn that the outbreak could enter a plateau stage, where the number of net hospitalizations and patients on ventilators remains steady while death continue to come in at rates like Louisiana has seen in the past several days.
Currently available data supports this idea, but it's simply too soon to tell for certain.
State and national health experts have also emphasized that the virus' spread isn't even, meaning some places will reach their peak sooner than others.
If some areas that appear to be ahead on flattening the curve, such as New Orleans, have people returning to their regular habits before other parts of the state are able to, it could easily lead to a return of the virus in a second wave.
Because of that, thew life-upending changes across Louisiana and the U.S. won't be going away soon. Edwards has already extended the state's stay at home order from April 13 to April 30, and top public school officials are urging him to keep students out of classrooms through the end of the semester.
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