Governor to Give Daily Update, Explains Increase in COVID Cases

Governor John Bel Edwards will give his daily COVID-19 address today at 2:30 pm. Based off of recent addresses and his Facebook post today, Edwards is expected to give more details about how COVID-19 patients are tests and what the daily report from the Louisiana Department of Health actually means.

Edwards posted the following statement today on FB in regards to today's LDH report:

Today, the Louisiana Department of Health is reporting 2,726 additional COVID-19 cases, bringing the state’s total to 9,150 cases. More than 95% of these positive results are from tests conducted in commercial labs.

While extremely upsetting, this increase in COVID-19 cases appears to be less a sign of new exponential growth and more a sign of a logjam from commercial labs. I am pleased to see a ramp up in testing across the state. We need this energy and commitment to continue. It’s important to understand that what’s happening in Louisiana with the increased testing is also happening around the country. That said, as more and more commercial labs come online our different data systems must learn to talk to one another.

I have said time and again – COVID-19 is a statewide problem and testing is a vital step towards understanding the scale of this problem. We believe COVID-19 is spreading in every parish in Louisiana.

You can watch today's public address from the Governor below: