Three more weeks of Phase 2

Louisiana will remain in Phase 2 of the state's COVID recovery plan for the next 21 days, Gov. John Bel Edwards said today (Aug. 4).

The extension includes maintaining orders requiring bars to remain closed to on-site consumption and for people to wear protective masks in public.

A few factors influencing Edwards' decision is that Louisiana leads the nation in COVID-19 cases per capita and has a 14 percent positivity rate of those tested. The goal is to have fewer than 10 percent of those tested be positive for COVID-19.

There have been 124,461 people test positive for COVID-19 since March. There have been 3,937 COVID-related deaths.

It was noted during Tuesday's press conference there are currently about 50,000 active cases of COVID in the state. While that means approximatley 74,000 have either recovered or died, it was pointed out that the 50,000 figure represents the most cases of COVID the state has had at any one time during the pandemic.
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