Over the last week, there have been approximately 128,000 new COVID-19 cases each day across the United States, which is a 69 percent increase from what the weekly average was two weeks ago. The country has recently topped over 10 million COVID-19 cases and some states are now going back to more restrictions on places like bars, restaurants and gyms.
Dr. David Holcombe from the Region 6 Office of Public Health says many parts of the country are experiencing what Louisiana went through two months ago, but because the state implemented restrictions months back, the regional positivity rate in Cenla has decreased.
“The actual percent positivity has been only rising in two of our parishes. One is in LaSalle and the other is Vernon and all of the other parishes have been dropping,” said Dr. Holcombe.
In Central Louisiana, the positivity rate is at four percent and in Rapides Parish that number is down to 3.5 percent. Hospitalizations and death rates are also both down in the region.
In Cenla, 61 percent of the population has been tested for COVID-19 at least once. Dr. Holcombe advises the younger population to not only get tested for the coronavirus but to also get a flu shot.
Dr. Holcombe said, “Your older population is normally pretty compliant. You’ll normally get 60 to 70 percent of people that get a flu shot. However, when you drop down in the age groups, similar to COVID-19, people feel like they may not get as sick.”
President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisor, Dr. Michael Osterholm, said that a four to six-week lockdown could control the pandemic and revive the economy in the United States.
Dr. Holcombe spoke on that possibility and said, “They’re going to have to do this differently in different states. There’s no doubt that a national mask mandate after the initial lockdown would have probably saved 100,000 lives. In states where they have no mandate and they never put in a mandate and it was allowed to happen on a city by city or county by county basis, they have had much worse results.”
He added that a national lockdown may not be needed in all areas and thinks that these mandate decisions should be made for areas with a high positivity rate.
https://www.kalb.com/2020/11/12/central-louisiana-parishes-dropping-in-covid-19-positivity-rate/
