Louisiana isn’t near the peak of the delta surge, according to Edwards: ‘We don’t have much good news’

Though there were no new COVID-19 related mandates issued by the governor during his Friday, Aug. 13, afternoon press conference, an increasingly frustrated John Bel Edwards did once again implore Louisiana residents to get vaccinated.

The state is one of America’s COVID-19 hot zones. Cases are amongst the highest while the percentage of residents vaccinated is amongst the lowest. Louisiana has broken records for patients hospitalized with the delta variant almost every day since Aug. 3, reaching an all-time high on Friday, Aug. 13, with 2,907 patients.

“We don’t have much good news today,” Edwards said. “As bad as things have been over the last couple of weeks they’ve just continued to move in the wrong direction.”

While stopping short of moving beyond the mask mandate he reinstated Aug. 2, the governor again threatened tougher actions if the situation does not improve. “Nothing in the data suggests we’re near or at the peak of this surge,” he said.

“A huge percentage” of Louisiana’s rising cases, says the governor, is coming from those between the ages of 18 and 25, a group that’s also amongst the least vaccinated. It’s a similar story across the nation as more than 260,000 cases this year have been linked to U.S. university and college students, as well as 700,000-plus cases over the course of the year-long-plus pandemic.

Hoping to reverse the trend, Louisiana will pay $100 to the first 75,000 college students at eligible institutions who get the vaccine.

This story originally appeared in an Aug. 13 edition of Daily Report. To keep up with Baton Rouge business and politics, subscribe to the free Daily Report e-newsletter here.