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Gov. Edwards Plans To Reopen Louisiana's Economy 'As Fast As We Can' While Protecting Public Health

Ben Depp
/
For WWNO
Businesses are boarded up on Frenchman Street, Tuesday afternoon. New Orleans, Louisiana. April 14, 2020.

As Louisiana’s outlook improves in the fight against the coronavirus, Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a Friday media briefing that he plans to reopen the state’s economy “as fast as we can while we adequately protect public health.”

White House Guidelines

On Thursday, President Donald Trump rolled out his three-phase plan for “reopening” the national economy on a conference call with governors.

Edwards said the plan will eventually serve as a valuable roadmap, but that he expects Louisiana to lag behind many other states on the path to economic recovery.

“Before you can ever get to phase one, there are some thresholds you need to meet, Edwards said, explaining that the state needs metrics like hospitalization rates to show consistent improvement over a two week period.

“We don’t meet the threshold requirements, although we’re moving in that direction,” Edwards said. “I think by the time we get to May the 1st, we will be in that situation.”

Edwards said the White House plan will go hand-in-hand with guidelines expected to be released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the coming days.

He said Louisiana’s out-patient surgical centers and non-emergency medical clinics will reopen first, likely before the statewide stay-at-home order expires at the end of the month. Edwards said he and Courtney Phillips, the newly-installed secretary of the department of health, will provide additional details next week.

Edwards said President Trump made it clear that governors would have the authority to lift social distancing orders and reopen businesses at their own pace — a departure from comments the president made earlier this week that suggested he might unilaterally order Americans back to work.

The Need For More Testing

Edwards said before any attempt is made to reopen the economy, the state will need more robust diagnostic surveillance and antibody testing coupled with aggressive contact tracing.

“I don’t think a single state today can say today that they have the amount of testing they want and need,” Edwards said. “We’re going to try to ramp up all of these types of testing.”

He said increased diagnostic testing capacity at in-state labs will mean fewer samples are shipped out of state, where transit times can delay results by several days. Rapid-testing will let doctors and public health workers better track and contain virus clusters. And antibody testing could identify a portion of the population who experienced mild symptoms and were never properly diagnosed. Edwards said those individuals may be protected from future infections and could more quickly reintegrate into society.

Backsliding On Social-Distancing Grades

Louisianans dropped one letter grade this week on Unacast’s COVID-19 Scorecard, which uses cell phone location data to determine how well people are complying with social distancing orders. The company gave the state an overall grade of “D.”

State officials have used that resource, and others like it, as they try to predict how the virus might spread in different regions of the state. Edwards said he was disappointed to see that.

“Around Easter Weekend the data shows that people lost their discipline a little bit,” Edwards said. “We’re trying to get that back so that we can be in the best possible position to reopen the economy and do so safely.”

Personal Protective Equipment

Edwards spoke from the floor of LSU’s Pete Maravich Assembly Center. The university has transformed the basketball area into a production floor for personal protective equipment, or PPE.

LSU Interim President Thomas Galligan said a professor dreamed up a design in his garage three weeks ago. He and a group of students quickly developed a prototype using billboard vinyl donated by Lamar Advertising. Since Monday, about 40 workers have produced more than 1,000 reusable vinyl gowns for health care workers and researchers each day.

Edwards said the makeshift factory is just one example of Louisiana’s colleges and universities putting their ingenuity to work to fight the coronavirus.

Paul Braun was WRKF's Capitol Access reporter, from 2019 through 2023.