The latest on the spread of coronavirus in New Orleans and across Louisiana.
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5:15 p.m.
Gov. John Bel Edwards confirmed Thursday that he and Attorney General Jeff Landry sent investigators into Louisiana abortion clinics that remain open amid the state’s the coronavirus outbreak.
In his daily press briefing, Edwards said the enforcement effort would extend to any medical facilities in violation of the Department of Health’s orders, which have shuttered most outpatient medical facilities and suspended all elective procedures until further notice in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.
Landry said his office set up a task force to look into reports of non-compliance. So far, he’s sent investigators to three facilities — including the Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge and Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport.
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5 p.m.
Fourteen refrigerated trailers have been set up as temporary morgues in New Orleans East and at the coroner's office on Earhart Boulevard, Mayor LaToya Cantrell announced in a Thursday afternoon press conference.
The mayor also announced that the city will shut down drive-through coronavirus test sites at the end of the day Friday and launch mobile testing units next week.
The mobile units will be sent to what officials called “hot spots”— places with high numbers of cases.
"Numbers were diminishing," Cantrell said. "When we first started, we were cranking out up to 300 at each site, then we went down to one site and we were seeing, like, 50 people, so we want to pivot our outreach to be more intentional."
Cantrell also said the city is facing a dire financial situation — a more than 100 million dollar deficit. The Sewerage and Water Board could go bankrupt. She is looking to the federal CARES Act for support, but said it’s not going to be enough.
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4:30 p.m.
Louisiana public schools will likely remain closed for the rest of the school year, Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a press conference Thursday afternoon.
But he did not give a timeline for when that decision would be made.Read more
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3 p.m.
The U.S. Marshals office in New Orleans is getting its hand sanitizer from what just one month ago would have seemed an extremely unlikely source: a local distillery.
Seven Three Distillery on North Claiborne is making hand sanitizer for a number of major clients, including the Marshals office, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and some regional hospitals, plus the general public.
“It’s a strange feeling to see everything turned upside-down," said Erik Morningstar, head distiller. "It’s weird.”
The distillery is using the bottling machine usually used to fill glass bottles with whiskey and rum to instead fill white plastic bottles with ethyl alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. Twenty employees are working to produce between 300 and 500 gallons of hand sanitizer daily.
Online, a gallon of sanitizer might cost between $50 and $100, plus shipping, which could take a while. Seven Three’s is much cheaper and is available immediately.
The distillery is one of many now doing this. In fact, hundreds of local businesses have pivoted to meet new demands.
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Noon
Fifty more people in Louisiana have been reported dead of COVID-19.
The latest numbers from the Louisiana Department of Health also show that another 31 people have been hospitalized, bringing the total to 2,014, but that the number of people on ventilators has decreased for the fifth day in a row. There are 473 people on ventilators — down 17 from yesterday.
In the month since the first Louisiana case was recorded, 18,283 people across the state have tested positive for coronavirus.
Commercial and state labs have completed a combined 86,919 tests. For those of you not doing the math at home, that means right now about 21 percent of all tests have come back positive.
There are 5,242 known cases of COVID-19 in Orleans Parish, where 224 people have died. In Jefferson Parish, we know 4,480 people are sick and 158 have died. East Baton Rouge Parish has 1,000 cases and 36 people there have died.
LDH Region 1 has 1,029 available hospital beds, 191 available ICU beds, and 352 available ventilators.
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Louisiana Department of Health
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