Sunday COVID update gives Louisiana decrease in virus hospitalizations

Sunday's COVID update from the Louisiana Department of Health comes with 2 days of data, and a much-needed decrease in state virus hospitalizations.

The state reports 1,960 COVID hospitalizations today, down from the 2,069 hospitalizations the state last reported on Friday.

This is good news. Our COVID hospitalization numbers have rapidly risen in recent weeks in the midst of an ongoing third wave of the pandemic. 

But it should be noted that weekends have historically been a time where decreases are shown in numbers, and early-week numbers often come with large rises, so we will continue to closely follow the numbers in the coming days to study the trends.

There are 225 COVID patients on ventilators in the state, up from 220 on Friday. 

In our region, Region 3, COVID hospitalizations dropped from 105 on Friday to 101 today. But patients on ventilators with COVID rose from 9 to 11. 

The virus is still spreading far more rapidly than medical experts would hope. 

The state reports 5,413 COVID cases in the past 48 hours, bringing Louisiana's total virus cases to 310,957. 

The state's % positive rate for the past 2 days is 10.3% with 5,413 new COVID cases and 52,294 processed tests. At 10.3% over two days, our state's positivity is still higher than medical experts would like. But our numbers are better than the 15+% rates we've seen some days or even the 18+% rate we saw earlier this week.

The state reports 40 new COVID deaths in the past 2 days, bringing Louisiana's confirmed death total to 7,447 since the start of the pandemic. 

In Lafourche, there's 59 new virus cases in the past 2 days, bringing the parish's confirmed virus totals to 5,710. 

The parish's 2-day positivity is 5.8% with 59 new cases and 1,005 processed tests. 

The parish has 156 confirmed COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic.