NEW ORLEANS —
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Monday that the city would not be following the rest of the state in starting phase two of reopening at the end of the week, claiming that the data was not clear enough to allow a reopening and that it could take several weeks before that decision is made.
Cantrell made her announcement shortly before Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards confirmed that Louisiana would further ease restrictions starting Friday, allowing some businesses to reopen for the first time since March and allowing others that had been operating at 25% capacity to increase the number of people allowed inside to 50% of total occupancy.
New Orleans has consistently been following its own timetable instead of the state's, even when the two match up significantly.
The city established a stay at home order two days before the state did in March. In May, Mayor LaToya Cantrell allowed the limited phase one reopening a day after the state began allowing them.
"We are watching the data, not the date," Cantrell said. "We don’t yet have sufficient data to authorize opening up further at this point. All of our decisions must be grounded in science and guided by the bedrock of public health: keeping our people safe.
Cantrell did not specify when the question of phase two reopening would be revisited by city officials, but indicated it could take several more weeks.
"We look forward to the return of visitors — but for that to happen, we have to be able to ensure New Orleans is the safest city to come to," she said. "That means being deliberate, and waiting until we have two to three weeks of additional data and the full confidence of our public health officials that restrictions can be further eased in a safe way.”
The decision not to enter phase two was not completely unexpected. Edwards has given authoritiy to local governments to open slower than the state if they wanted, and health experts say a slow rollout gives them more time to see if phase one leads to an uptick in cases.
Dr. Jennifer Avegno, the city's health department director, said during a press conference Friday since phase one reopening began for conclusive data to show that current social distancing measures would continue to work as more businesses reopened to the public.
The novel coronavirus was first found in Louisiana on March 9. Less than two weeks later, Edwards and Cantrell declared stay at home orders, asking all non-essential workers to stay home and enforcing strict social distancing guidelines.
The orders closed some businesses outright, and in practice closed the doors for almost all of the state's "non-essential" workplaces by encouraging employees to stay home.
As of Monday, Louisiana has over 40,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 2,700 deaths associated with the virus. Of those, New Orleans accounts for more than 7,000 cases and 500 deaths.
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