Covid-19 News

"Early on, our elected leaders made difficult decisions to cancel public events, order aggressive but necessary social distancing measures, and issue calls for the public to stay at home to limit the virus’s spread. Most notably, the people of the greater New Orleans area heeded those calls. ... By embracing these recommendations, we were able to flatten the curve and keep hospitals from becoming overwhelmed," Dr. Kanter writes of the greater New Orleans region.

Next week, COVID-19 mobile testing for Region 5 is moving to a new location in Lake Charles. Community testing is available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to noon.   

The parish health units will be following social distancing guidelines and scheduling appointments for these back-to-school events. Vaccines will be available over a two-week period, from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. August 24 to September 4.

Throughout next week, mobile testing for Region 5 will continue at the Lake Charles Civic Center from 8 a.m. until noon from Monday, August 17 to Friday, August 21

In this Q&A blog series, our regional public health leaders will be answering many of the same questions, and together they will paint a statewide perspective of the COVID-19 pandemic and their communities' response. Dr. Tina Stefanski is the regional medical director for Region 4, which includes the parishes of Acadia, Evangeline, Iberia, Lafayette, St. Landry, St. Martin and Vermilion.

"Changing behavior is hard. We have a very friendly, outgoing culture here in Acadiana. The idea of social distancing is very new for all of us, but it is such a critically important piece to slowing down transmission, flattening the curve and, ultimately, saving lives," Dr. Stefanski writes of Acadiana.

MIS-C is a serious health condition in young people less than 21 years of age where different body organs can become inflamed and fail. These include the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes or gastrointestinal organs.

Testing is available through the end of next week at Cajun Field at the University of Louisiana, the Lake Charles Civic Center and the Rapides Parish Exhibition Center in Alexandria.

Gov. John Bel Edwards announced today that he will extend his Phase Two order, including the statewide mask mandate, closure of bars to on-site consumption and crowd size limits of no more than 50 people for at least another 21 days.

Mobile testing sites in Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron and Jefferson Davis parishes will be open from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. from Monday, August 3 to Friday, August 7.