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The evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic is coming to an end continues to mount. With COVID vaccinations increasing daily, and recovery numbers shooting up every week, the numbers of new cases continues to plummet in Louisiana.

On January 15th, the Louisiana Department of Health reported 2,103 COVID cases with a 7-day average of 2,172 cases.

By February 15th, LDH reported 483 daily COVID cases, with a 7-day rolling average of 782 cases.

Then yesterday, the Louisiana Department of Health posted only 171 COVID cases, with 138 being confirmed. The current 7-day rolling average of cases is 345.

Those numbers show an 80% decline in daily cases between January 15th and February 15th, and a drop of 92% between January 15th and March 15th. The rolling average of cases has declined 84% between January 15th and March 15th.

But case numbers don't always paint an accurate number of what is happening with COVID. The better metric to monitor is hospitalizations. Because cases can spike, but if they're all asymptomatic or mild, they don't translate to fatal outcomes, which is was we're trying to avoid in general.

When we look at those number, we see something very similar. The hospitalization numbers between January 15th and March 15th paint a similar picture to what we see in cases.

On January 15th the Louisiana Department of Health reported 2,001 people hospitalized in Louisiana with a COVID diagnosis. By February 15th that number had dropped to 849, and now on March 15th the number is 455.

Again, this is a massive drop month-to-month. The drop between January and February was 58%, and the drop from January to March was 77%. Showing that not only are hospitalizations continuing to decline, but the rate they're dropping in increasing each month.

At the current rate of increase (19% increase in drop February to March), by April 15th the drop from January 15th should be 96%. That would put the hospitalization number by April 15th at 81. Just 81 people in the hospital with a COVID positive test by mid-April.

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