Given the very latest information on COVID 19 and the impact of the Omicron variant on our state from the following figures, in the following order we'll have first Governor John Bel Edwards.

He'll be followed by our state epidemiologist, Teresa So-call.

Then you'll hear from Dr. Catherine O'Neill, chief medical officer at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge.

She'll be followed by Dr. inEurope Patel, CMO of University Medical Center in New Orleans, and then Monty Wilson, who is the president of Christie's St Francis Cabrini Hospital in Alexandria.

Governor Edwards will then provide closing comments and then open it up to questions.

Please be aware that we're not going to have a whole lot of time, and so we will only take questions from reporters with established media outlets only and to the reporters.

Please provide your name and your media outlet affiliation in the chat box.

As soon as you know that you have a question so they can go ahead and call on you at the appropriate time.

So everyone listening, please make sure that your microphones are muted.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

And with that, we'll go ahead and get started and turn things over to Governor Edwards.

Governor, thank you, Sean.

And just to be sure, we want to make sure that you can hear me.

Yes, sir, we can.

OK, very good.

Well, I start the press conference today.

Saying something that I hope that would not have to say again, and that is that we are surging again here in Louisiana, particularly because of the Omicron variant.

And quite frankly, while it has been a very sharp increase over the last number of days, we're going to get into that in just a moment.

We are still at the very beginning of this current surge, and that's why we need everyone to take this seriously.

Be prudent in what you do and and in what you don't do.

And obviously, nobody should panic that that's not helpful and it's not necessary.

But we have to take this very seriously, and I'm going to show you some numbers that may many of you may have already seen, but they are very sobering.

So here is the latest.

Today, the Department of Health is reporting 12,400.

67 new cases and 762 hospitalizations now hospitalizations, by the way, that's a 268% increase just since December the 17th and the 14 days and 14 days for people in our hospitals with COVID has increased at a startling fast rate.

And I'll just go back, you know, 44 day total over Christmas.

We've reported 12,164 cases and that that really took my breath away.

We reported more than that in today's number alone.

Among those on in the hospitals, we have 32 on mechanical ventilators, and we are reporting two deaths today, which brings the total number of deaths in Louisiana since the start of the pandemic to 14,986 just shy of 15,000.

I do want to tell you that emergency department visits and hospitals all across the state of Louisiana that are related to COVID have more than doubled over the last week and as of December the 25th.

16.7% of emergency department visits were related to COVID 19.

The peak was 18.7% US during Delta, the Delta Surge.

And so we know that we are right back there.

And in fact, in my conversations today with medical directors of our Tier one hospitals all across the state, Louisiana, and I'm going to get more into this in just a moment.

We know that the visits to the emergency department over the last couple of days have increased beyond even the numbers that I just gave you.

So we know that we're having.

Emergency department visits related to COVID like illnesses at an all time high in the greater New Orleans area and in northwest Louisiana, and likely, if not already very, very soon in every hospital across the state.

So that's why we need to be serious and we need to take this surge very seriously.

As I mentioned earlier today, I had an opportunity to visit by Zoom with all of the Tier one hospital medical directors from across the state of Louisiana.

I wanted to get a firsthand account of what they're seeing and experiencing.

And I will tell you, we just mentioned that the emergency department visits I have been the most they've experienced thus far in the pandemic, and it is very important that people not go to the emergency room simply to be tested for COVID.

And you're going to be given more information.

By Teresa Sokol of the Department of Health in just a moment about what you should do instead of going to the hospital.

We do know that being vaccinated in Boston is a big differentiator between the severity of the disease that you can expect should you contract COVID right now.

And obviously there is a continuum here, but the most severe disease is among unvaccinated people.

The least severe disease is among those who are vaccinated and boost it.

And quite frankly, the boosters that third shot make a tremendous difference.

That's a big differentiator right now.

And then the last thing I want to share with you, although we covered a number of topics with the hospitals across the state, the lesson we will share with you is about hospital capacity.

It's certainly become an issue both with respect to the overall census.

And I mentioned to you a while ago how many people in the hospital they diagnosed as COVID positive.

But really, the more limiting factor at the moment at least has to do with staffing availability because a very large number and percentage of the hospitals, doctors, therapists and others who are involved in direct patient care are out there not available because they too have COVID.

That's caused by this Omicron variant, which, as you all know, is extremely transmissible, and it's on an order of transmissibility that's several times higher than any of the appearance that we have experienced thus far.

And I'll let Dr..

I should say Teresa Suppl explain in a minute about whether it is or isn't more virulent.

We don't believe that it is, but it's just a function of math that if if.

Many, many more people contracted it because of its enhanced transmissibility.

It can be less violent and still put a real strain on our hospital capacity.

Also, and I mentioned this earlier, I spoke to some hospital leaders today, but I want you to hear from some directly.

I want you to to get a firsthand account of what they are experiencing and what their observations are, and they will share that with you shortly.

You know, I told you that today we had a 12,467 cases.

Yesterday, we thought we added 9378.

And according to the CDC, the New York Times and others, that was the most we've ever added in a 24 hour period.

And now we've actually broken that by about a third higher.

And so if you go all the way back to the start of the pandemic, we have not reported numbers this high in terms of cases.

And so I want that to sink in with the people all across Louisiana, just what this disease burden is like across our state and then understand that we are at the beginning of this surge.

We're not at the middle of it.

We're certainly not at the end of it.

And so this is a very challenging situation that we need to take seriously.

We also know that the numbers that we're reporting in terms of cases don't include people who are taking at home antigen tests because those whose positive test results are not being included in these numbers.

And secondly, we know that there are a lot of people out there who even though they're infected and infectious, they have COVID.

They're asymptomatic and people who are asymptomatic typically are not being tested at all.

And in fact, recent CDC estimates indicate that for every case that is reported, there are additional three individuals who are infected, but those infections are not being reported.

Now this is playing out in a lot of ways, one of which is increasing percent positivity, meaning the percentage of tests that we're administering on a daily basis.

You know, what is the percentage of those tests that are yielding positive results?

What we can tell you is one week statewide, percent positivity and incidence both increased by more than 200% from the previous weekly report.

Very preliminary data for the week that ended December the 23rd indicates that percent positivity to reported next week will be.

More than two times this week's 10.7%, so we're going to have a percent positivity that will be well in excess of 20% the next time we officially report.

And what that means is statewide, more than 20% of all of our tests that we're administering are yielding a positive result.

Average daily incidence of COVID one in region one.

And that's the greater New Orleans area has actually exceeded the Delta Surge peak.

And in fact, when you look at disease burden and transmission across the state, 95% of our 64 parishes are at the two highest levels of community transmission.

That's up 81% of parishes who were in this category last week.

These alarming increases are due to the continued rapid spread of the Omicron variant in obviously, and I don't think this is questioned by anyone anymore.

It spreads much faster than other variants that we've experienced to date.

Now it is the dominant strain across Louisiana and responsible for more than 90% of all COVID cases.

So not unlike when a storm is barreling towards toward us and we see it coming across the Gulf or or the Atlantic.

You know, when we experience a surge and we've already been here four times previously, we have to take additional precautions to stay safe, to ride it out, to minimize loss.

And we know that at some point and we don't know when we're going to crest and we're going to start coming down again.

But we have to make sure that we don't overwhelm our capacity to deliver lifesaving care, not just to COVID patients, but to anyone who needs care in our hospitals.

That could be a stroke victims, heart attack victims, motor vehicle accidents, you name it.

We need to make sure that we have the capacity there to render that care that they need.

It is also true that the vast majority of people who are currently hospitalized with COVID 19 are not fully vaccinated, and LDH put out guidance earlier this week recommending getting vaccinated and being boosted.

That booster shot is incredibly important, but also masking indoors in public places, masking indoors.

When you're with members who are not of your own household, you know, and then masking outside when distancing is not possible, working remotely, when that's feasible and limiting your exposures to those who are not in your household.

All of these things are important to go back to the beginning, really of COVID, but they remain very integral parts of the way that we combat the surge.

And even since LDH put out that information, the situation has obviously deteriorated further.

So I wanted to get in front of the media in front of the people in Louisiana today, one day before Christmas Eve, when I know many people like to get together, have a party, have a have a family gathering and so forth.

But the Department of Health here in Louisiana and I are urging you to celebrate from home with members of your everyday household because that's how much COVID 19 there is out there right now and how highly transmissible it is and how serious the situation is.

That's why I will be ringing in the new year from here, where I am currently at my home and Roseland.

And quite frankly, we changed our plans for Christmas as well.

So rather than have an extended family members coming in, some from out of state and so forth, we celebrated Christmas just as our nuclear household with my wife and children.

And we're going to do that throughout the week here in Roseland, and then we'll do it for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day as well.

And I'm encouraging everyone to consider this and to do it and to make sure that you're as safe as you can be this weekend.

And it's not just the new year.

We know that that a few days after New Year's Day, twelve schools are going to resume and it's going to resume.

While we are in a surge like we haven't yet experienced in terms of the disease burden, the amount of cases that are out there and all of the transmission that's occurring and all the implications that that has for the safety of our children, our teachers and other staff and and families and so forth.

So you're going to hear Teresa Sokol in a minute put out new strong recommendations for a safe return to K through twelve schools.

But these recommendations will include urging schools to ensure that we have universal masking indoors and outdoors when distancing isn't possible.

We need you to look at suspending extracurricular activities so long as the extremely transmissible Hong Kong variant is circulating at such high levels throughout our state, and we should never, ever lose sight of just how important vaccinations and boosters are.

Current vaccines do protect against severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths due to infection with the al-Muqrin variant.

However, we know that there are going to be some breakthrough infections and we've had those, and I would remind everyone that when the vaccines were developed, they were designed and the purpose was to provide protection against severe disease , hospitalization and death.

But they still do that.

But we know the protection that they give you does wane over time, which is why it's important that that people get boosted when they're eligible for a booster and that booster.

And my conversations with the hospitals today, they really spoke about how much protection that was affording people because they're just not seeing many severe cases at all of of COVID requiring inpatient hospitalization for those people who have been fully vaccinated and then boosted.

Now.

I'm going to also address myself to unvaccinated folks, and, you know, we've been administering vaccines in Louisiana for twelve and a half months now.

And clearly there are people, many people, too many people who, for whatever reason, have decided not to avail themselves of the benefits of the protection that's afforded by by vaccines.

But I'm going to continue to talk to them because it's important.

It's important for them, for their family, for their community and for the state.

And I don't believe that any choices that have been made, any decisions have been made or necessarily permanent, especially when we know that facts change.

And so when we're looking at a surge in cases and in transmission that exceeds anything we've experienced to date, that's certainly something that needs to be taken into consideration by anyone who hasn't yet been vaccinated, needs to be taken into consideration by anyone who's been vaccinated but not boosted.

And so we're going to continue to talk to all of these individuals and we're going to do everything we can to remove obstacles that may be out there and making it harder for people to be vaccinated.

You know, we've worked very hard to stop that across the state, make it convenient.

It's free and and so forth.

And we've been doing that since the early days and the pandemic.

We make sure that it's available for people off hours.

So so it doesn't have to interfere with work or other obligations.

But we also know that bad information misinformation are also obstacles, and we're trying to remove that for people as well, which is why we have people who speak to you, like Teresa Sopel, like Dr. O'Neill, Dr. Patel and Marty Wilson.

But we also ask you if, if for whatever reason, if this isn't sufficient for you to feel comfortable and get vaccinated, talk to your health care provider, talk to someone that that you rely upon.

And by the way, we have reason to believe that our efforts are working, not to the degree that we would like.

But since the month of December, an additional almost 72,000 people have received their first shot, and every new year brings about a host of resolutions that people make about things that they're going to do or not do for their benefit or the benefit of their families.

And so for those people who have not yet been vaccinated, I would encourage you to add by being vaccinated to your list of New Year's resolutions and do it in a way that you're going to keep it because a lot of New Year's resolutions, as you know, are not necessarily kept.

But this will be the most important one that you can make for 2022.

And while I hope and pray that 2022 is a much better year for each of you individually, for our families, for our state, for our country, January's can be very, very challenging.

And there's just no doubt about that right now.

It's going to be challenging on individual.

Individuals who contract COVID or who have family members, but for professionals, whether it's our teachers, whether it's our doctors or nurses, a therapist, you name it, this is going to be a very challenging year.

So I'm asking everyone to take this seriously and do what you can to help us navigate through what is going to be a very difficult several weeks, at least through the month of January.

So with that, I'm going to ask state epidemiologist Teresa Sokol to share some information with you.

And then you're going to hear from Dr. O'Neill, Dr. Patel and Marty Wilson.

And then I'll come back and and take some questions at the conclusion of their remarks.

OK, I think I'm on you two now, thank you very much, Governor Edwards.

I'm curious if on the state epidemiologist with the Louisiana Department of Health, and I'm going to be reviewing data related to our own the concert and go over some public health recommendations to enhance public health recommendations, given the level of transmission that's occurring in our state.

Dr. Cantor usually presents this information.

He's taking some well-earned sleep, and so I've got some big shoes to fill.

one of the recommendations that I'm going to be making is to stay home and work remotely as much as possible.

And you can see that I happen to be in my office, and this really is for two reasons.

one.

Almost all of the rest of my team worked remotely.

And number two, my ten year old son would really very much like to have the opportunity to speak with Governor Edwards.

And so I thought it was best for all parties involved that I actually take this call from the office.

Let me just try to share my screen.

Okay.

You've already covered this one.

All right.

So I think everyone is familiar with our community risk visualization, that's of the front page of our dashboard.

But those of you who may not know community risk is the classification system.

It's meant to allow community members and policymakers to really understand the COVID 19 risk status status in each parish.

And the hope that that information will help guide appropriate health behavior.

This system is based on CDC classification system developed by CDC, and we determine each parishes risk according to two factors that evaluate transmission.

one is the one week incidence, which is the number of new cases per 100,000 population and the other 2% positivity, which I think everybody knows is the percent of tests for COVID 19 that are positive.

Just to refresh everyone's memory, we have four categories.

High and substantial are two highest categories, and you can see here that 95% of our parishes are at the highest COVID 19 risk levels.

49 of our 64 parishes are at the high level of transmission.

This is where you have either at least 10% positivity or more than 100 cases per 100,000 population.

And what that means is that in these areas there is widespread, uncontrolled COVID transmission with many undetected cases.

That is where most of our state was as of the time these data were reported and there was a lag with these data.

So I can tell you that probably right now, the entire state, every single parish, because of the level of transmission that's occurring, the number of new cases that we're seeing every single day in every single parish is in that category at this point.

Now I'm going to go with the gating statewide dating slide.

This is something that I know the Dr. Cantor often presents to just give everybody good visibility across all of the indicators that we really track.

So if you look at the top left hand side, what we're tracking here are you'll hear us refer to it as Seelye .

And it's the percent of emergency department visits that are attributable to people presenting with COVID like symptoms.

You can see, of course, our distinct searches here.

What I'd really like everybody to pay attention to is where we are right now.

See the increase in emergency department visits related to COVID like illness.

As Governor Edwards mentioned, we're at 16.7% right now of all emergency department visits related to people presenting with COVID like symptoms.

That's up from 7.4% just a week ago.

And you see we're almost at the peak with Delta.

And what this means for emergency departments is that they are very strange and that they need to be able to maintain the capacity to provide services for people who need emergency care.

So I'm going to talk a little bit later about COVID testing, but I just want to briefly mention here that it's very important for people who want to be tested and if they don't have symptoms or they have very mild symptoms and they know the emergency department has to be open, that's not the place to go to get a COVID test.

I'm going to provide some additional advice later on, but I just wanted to illustrate how how many emergency department visits they're seeing overall and that we really need to preserve the capacity for our emergency room.

So I'm going to move on to the top right hand side.

This is our epi curve.

I know everyone's familiar with it.

It graph average daily incidence based on the date a specimen was collected over time.

Now I will say this there is a delay.

Again, I believe that this last data point right here is maybe December 23rd.

You can see already, even though there's a lag, you see a sharp increase is occurring.

What I can tell you is that if you were to rerun these data with the more recent cases that we've seen over the past couple of days, it would be much, much deeper.

So just keep that in mind, this is to show we're definitely surging.

We're surging even higher than you can see us based on this epic per.

Moving up to the bottom left hand corner here and what you can see is that you see the purple line is percent positive, I'm sorry, the purple line in test volume, it's the number of tests per 10,000 residents and the orange bars are percent positivity.

The percent positivity that was reported this week is there's a lag of maybe five or six days and it was 10.7%, which is already more than triple the previous week of 3.3%.

But as Governor Edward said, we have pulled some preliminary data to see what's happening most recently and.

We think that probably we're going to land somewhere between 20 and 30% for next week.

And you can see we have not seen in any of the previous surges, we have not seen levels that high since the very first surge when we had almost no testing available.

And we're not in that situation right now.

The issue with the increases in percent positivity is not because of limited capacity with testing, it's because of dramatically increased transmission.

I do want to talk a little bit about hospitalization.

So basically what we know is that hospitalizations are increasing statewide, not as quickly as cases, but we also know that hospitalizations, the increases in hospitalizations trail increases in cases by approximately one to two weeks.

Now, as Governor Edwards mentioned, there are some reports that McCrone may result in less severe illness, and I'll be happy for Dr. O'Neill to talk a little bit more about what she's seeing in the hospital setting.

But even if a smaller proportion of cases require hospitalization with Macron, which we really don't know yet, we know that a smaller proportion of the enormous number of cases that are occurring may overwhelm our facilities.

We have not seen the number of cases that are occurring right now ever before in the pandemic.

And so we need to keep that in mind when we're thinking about the need to preserve hospital capacity.

As Governor Edwards mentioned, what we have heard and what we've seen, what we've collected in our data that most individuals who are hospitalized still are unvaccinated and that the more well vaccinated you are, the better protected you're going to be for severe disease.

We strongly encourage folks to get this soon as they're eligible.

I did want to briefly touch on therapeutics at that point because we pre previous surgeon, particularly with the Delta Surge, we had monoclonal antibodies that were in clinical supply.

These could be administered to people who were at high risk for progression to hospitalization and severe disease, and it would help do a good job of helping to prevent that progression to severe illness.

We're in a very different situation now.

There were three types of monoclonal monoclonal antibodies that were previously available, and unfortunately, the two that were in the most plentiful supply are do not appear to be effective against Macron.

And in fact, because of that and because of the proportion of overcommit circulating throughout the United States, the federal government plans to put a pause on distribution of these two monoclonal antibodies beginning next year, beginning of January.

That leaves one monoclonal antibody such roadmap that remains effective against all variants.

The problem without with the trial, and that is that it is in very limited supply.

We have very few doses here in Louisiana.

We are certainly as soon as we are allocated any doses from the federal government, we are pushing them out immediately to health care facilities so that they can get to patients that need them most.

There just aren't enough to go around, so we don't have that option to help prevent hospitalization among the people who really may end up with severe illness.

You've probably also heard about the new pills that are being produced, the antiviral pills that are being produced by Merck and by Pfizer, and we are receiving allocations of those.

But again, very limited supply.

There are not enough to go around to all of the individuals who qualify as high risk and would benefit from some of these new therapeutics.

So we're in a position now which is different than with Delta, where we don't have enough of the therapeutics that may help prevent severe illness that we previously did.

So I just think that that's important when we're thinking about the increases that we're already seeing and hospitalizations, because what it means is that the other measures for preventing transmission becomes even more important.

one of the thing I did want to mention about incidents, which I don't think I touched on is related to the increase right now we look at if you look at community risk, we look at one week incidents.

This is average daily incidents that you see here.

Currently, our one week incidence is 287 per 100,000.

And remember, I said that the threshold for considering high levels of transmission is 100 per 100,000.

What we will be reporting out next week based on our preliminary data analysis is more than 750 per 100,000, up from 287.

Just one week before.

And for context, I can tell you, at the beginning of December, that number was only 49 per 100,000.

So in a month, we've gone from 49 per 100,000 to over 750 per 100,000.

That shows you how quickly this variance spreads.

Hey, I'm going to show a couple of slides.

I know you all are familiar with these skating tables.

This goes back to the White House criteria that were established that we continue to monitor and what the indicators that are evaluated with this are the emergency department visits related to COVID like illness and the new cases that are occurring and also hospitalizations.

The last time we reviewed this with everybody was October 20th, and you can see that that we were doing really well.

Everything is green, which is decreasing.

We have a few yellow indicators that means a plateau where everything is stable.

We had one indicator that was decreasing and one of our regions.

And other than that we were, we were doing really well.

This is where we are now.

We are increasing across the state and all of the regions across all of these indicators, with the exception of hospitalizations in Region five, we're right now.

What we're seeing is a plateau.

I don't expect it to stay that way for long.

So if you want to touch a little bit about what we're seeing in terms of different age groups, which you can see here, the gray line is.

18 to 29 year old.

And you can see that this is not unlike previous surges, we started to see the increase related to Omicron first in this young adult population, and it continues of young adult cases among the young adult population continue to account for most of our cases.

Probably well, where that started was related to some large university outbreaks that we had when the Crown was first introduced into our state and then transmission subsequently continued in that population and certainly then spread to other age groups as well.

After the group, we're seeing the second highest number of cases are the 30 to 39 year old, followed by our kids under the age of 18.

And so, as Governor Edwards mentioned, we are increasingly concerned because there are a very large number of cases among our pediatric population right now, and we really want to make sure that we can.

Ensure the safety of the in-person learning experience, so we're working very hard to achieve that.

I'm just going to briefly touch on this slide, I think everyone's familiar with it.

This graph, the new nursing home residents and staff, cases and deaths by week and what I really want to highlight here it is related to the effects of the vaccine.

So what we know is that the nursing home residents are very well vaccinated.

I think about 90% are fully vaccinated and we have another, I think, over 50% that are boosted as well.

The nursing home staff are not as well vaccinated.

We have about they're they're doing much, much better.

We have about 80% that are better vaccinated, at least have one vaccine.

But only 13% of these individuals have been boosted.

And so you can really see that when you're looking at the recent increases in cases, the gray line here represents new cases among nursing home staff members.

And again, they're not very, very few of these individuals are boosted.

So you see that there's a sharp increase in the number of new cases in that population recently.

We do see a little bit of an uptick here in the blue line.

New resident cases but it's much, much less than what we're seeing with the new the new cases among nursing home staff.

And right now, unfortunately, I'm worried that we're going to potentially start to see some changes.

But right now we're still seeing fairly stable numbers of deaths, which is showing us that the vaccine is well protective against severe health outcomes, the hospitalizations and deaths, and hoping that trend continues.

I think everyone is probably familiar with the proportions of Americans that are circulating.

I just wanted to show this slide to show how dramatic the increase has been from one week to the next here, the week ending December fourth, we had less than 5%.

The proportion of American, among other circulating lineages, was less than 5% the following week.

It was looks like less than 50%, and now it is over 80%.

It represents over 80% of our of our circulating lineages.

So I think that because what we know about overcrowding being so highly transmissible, the more growth advantage it has and the more becomes our dominant circulating strain, the greater the risk for increased transmission is going to be.

So now I want to just move quickly on to what does all this mean?

What should we do?

I agree 100% with Governor Edwards, now is not the time to panic.

Now is the time to act because we know now how to control it.

We know what to do.

We know what actions to take.

Take them.

They want to remind everybody what the most important actions we can take.

Our first and foremost, we all have to talk about being vaccinated and rested.

This is going to protect people against severe illness and especially if folks get suicide, this is going to protect against infection and help reduce subsequent transmission.

Vaccination is really how we put this pandemic behind, as we say it all the time, but it's true.

And so we strongly encourage people who haven't already had to choose to get vaccinated and boosted.

Now what we know, in order to really immediately reduce transmission, there are some other actions that we can take.

We need to stay home as much as possible.

We need to work remotely.

We need to limit our interactions with people who are not in our everyday household.

And that means no social gatherings like on New Year's Eve, similar to Governor Edwards.

My family will be staying at home.

I'm going to let my kids stay up till midnight.

I'll probably fall asleep before they do, which is going to be a mistake because my son also got a box, a box of pranks for Christmas.

So no telling what's going to happen, but there's going to be some excitement that can be had.

So.

So you know, we can we can make it fun and we're all looking forward to it.

Everyone needs to ask.

I can't emphasize this enough.

We know that masks work.

We know that they work no matter what variant is circulating.

Everybody needs to mask indoors and people need to mask outdoors if you're going to be in a crowded setting.

You're going to be not going to be able to physically distance.

I do want to talk a little bit about testing because testing is another strategy that we have.

Testing allows for early detection and then isolation of those cases to prevent transmission and quarantine of people who are close contacts so that they don't transmit the virus if they become positive.

So I just want to talk a little bit about what the testing situation is right now.

Right now, we have PCR tests that are still widely available right now, the turnaround time of 24 to 48 hours in most cases.

But we also know that if the demand for testing increases that may change, the turnaround time may be longer and they become less widely available.

We are already seeing shortages with regard to rapid tests, both the types of tests that you can go to a health care setting and be tested over the counter test that you might just buy in the drugstore.

There are shortages here and shortages nationwide.

While we could do continue to try to make testing widely available because it is important.

And if you want to try to find a testing site that's near you, you can go to LDH Dot L.A.

Dot Gov slash COVID testing, or you can call 211 to find a site near you.

But if you are asymptomatic, but you know, you've been exposed or you have very mild symptoms and you're not able to find a testing location for some reason.

The important thing to do given our level of transmission is to really go ahead and take precautions if you have been exposed, but you're not able to be tested to find out if you've been infected.

Go ahead and quarantine to keep everybody safe.

CDC put out new guidelines that actually make it easier to quarantine and to isolate.

So if you are fully vaccinated and you're fully vaccinated, you boosted or you are fully vaccinated and not yet eligible for a booster dose, then you actually don't need to quarantine at home.

You can wear them, make sure you wear a mask for ten days and then if you can try to test yourself at day five.

But that's the new CDC recommendation for quarantine.

You are not fully vaccinated or you are unvaccinated.

We are asking that you quarantine at home for five days and then for the next five days, the remainder of the quarantine.

You don't have to stay at home any more, but you do need to wear a mask to protect others in case you.

You might still be infectious.

So that makes it much easier than the 14 day quarantine period that was recommended before.

If you are symptomatic, you're not able to get tested if you have COVID like symptoms at this point.

Given what we're seeing here, you need to assume that you have COVID and you need to act accordingly.

Again, isolation guidance has changed as well, and this is true across the board, regardless of whether or not you are regardless of vaccination status.

Everyone who's infected or suspected they are infected should isolate, stay at home for five days and then after five days.

If your symptoms have resolved you don't have any fever, then you can go where your at least your symptoms are mostly improving, but you can't have fever.

Then you can leave your home, but you really need to wear the mask for the additional five days of that traditional ten day isolation period.

So that would be my recommendation if you're not able to get tested.

And again, the new guidance makes it a little bit easier to do that.

Again, I just want to reiterate, please do not go to an emergency department to get a COVID test if you are asymptomatic or you have mild symptoms that can be managed at home.

We need to preserve that capacity for emergency care.

The last thing I want to talk about are the return to school recommendations.

So as Governor Edwards said, we know that we know that school, the schools are going to be reopening next week.

We also know that many children have probably traveled or have gathered with members outside of their household, which puts them at increased risk for infection.

And we also know that Omicron spreads very easily and very quickly.

You've seen the sharp increase in COVID cases that's resulted in also sharp increases in hospitalizations and emergency department visits.

And I can tell you that this variant is capable of causing widespread outbreaks in schools and will likely result in K through twelve school closures because of a large number of absences.

If prevention measures are not strictly followed in these settings, now here's what needs to happen in order to keep kids and people who adults who work in schools safe and keep those schools open.

Mask universally indoors and outside when social distancing isn't possible.

This has to be done across the board for everyone except for whom it might be contraindicated.

Someone with it with a disability, for example, who can't tolerate it, but everybody else really needs to mask universally inside the K through twelve setting.

one of the areas where we've previously seen outbreaks has been during mealtimes because out of necessity, you have to take your mask off, right?

So so what we need to do in those situations is try to increase the distance because kids will not be masked to try to keep them at least six feet apart as much as possible.

Now here's the recommendation Governor Edwards mentioned it.

It's not something we recommended across the board before, but this just goes to show everybody that the level of transmission that's occurring and the concern we have for what might happen in schools when they reopen, what is safest is to suspend extracurricular activities right now.

This is where most of the outbreaks that we have identified in K-through-12 settings have occurred.

We've been associated with extracurricular activities.

We want to preserve in-person learning.

We think these need to be suspended.

Now we don't want it to just sort of remain in an indefinite recommendation.

We think that once statewide incidence is below 200 infections per 100,000 people, they can perhaps safely resume.

Remember, that's still double what we consider to be high levels of transmission that we are having cases on the order of 750 per 100,000.

It's just not safe.

So we recommend a public health recommendation to suspend these extracurricular activities and other social gatherings like.

Oh, pep rallies or or school dances, that sort of thing, get vaccinated and boosted kids and staff when they're eligible, and we would like it possible for the children and staff to be tested prior to return to school.

Simply, if someone is positive but they don't know it, then they can isolate before they come to school again.

I know that some of these recommendations are difficult to implement.

I have a 13 year old daughter and a ten year old son, and maintaining the safety of these environments is near and dear to my heart, both personally and professionally.

But this is really what needs to happen right now.

We will closely monitor the situation and then lift some of the more enhanced control measures as appropriate.

I think that is the last slide I have seen.

It sounds like we're holding questions until the end, so I will toss it to Dr. Catherine O'Neill.

Thank you, Theresa, can you hear me OK?

Thank you so much.

Thank you both for allowing me to be on today to talk a little bit about what's going on in the hospital.

And then next steps to to hopefully try to get out of the surge as quickly as possible.

I am.

I looked at our hospital census this morning.

It's shocking.

It's shocking.

Each surge, you don't get used to seeing an exponential growth of patients in the hospital with one disease, which we've talked about before.

We've tripled our census since last week.

Our air is inundated and has been for several days now by inundated.

What I mean is that it feels like you might as well leave the doors wide open because you can't stop the flow of patients that need to be cared for.

And that feeling felt like an apocalypse two years ago.

And now we know that it's a search and and it's here and we are going to buckle down in the hospital and do our best again.

When you look at these 66 patients that are with us today, there are some similarities and there are some differences.

The similarities are that the sickest people are unvaccinated again.

And when you look at those sickest people, it is shocking to see who has chosen to remain unvaccinated in the speaks to our failure as a community to really get the knowledge needed to everybody who needs it.

Whether it's a grandmother who has been struggling at home for a week and refused to come in and is now on life support, or whether it's a father who's relatively healthy but cannot handle this disease, how how have they not reached for a vaccine yet?

And how can we do a better job of getting that vaccine to those people?

We also have vaccinated and understood people in the hospital.

And as we spoke about in the delta surge, those people are more typically people who have lots of underlying illnesses.

They are fragile.

They are the people we wrap our hands around as a community and try to protect because we know that vaccines alone do not protect them.

And now we know that they have to have boosters as well.

They have to have that third dose because this is a three dose series.

And if they don't have that third dose, they're susceptible.

So we are seeing those people in the hospital as well, and we need to get our boosters into as many people as possible in the next couple of weeks.

We also have ten children in the children's hospital, and I will tell you we talked about this in the delta surge when it first began, we knew we would see more kids.

This is the fastest increase in children that we've seen at the beginning of a surge.

Most of these children are also unvaccinated.

In fact, they are uniformly vaccinated because we have really not reached our pediatric population, even though we've had vaccines accessible to them for months.

And absolutely every child who qualifies for a vaccine could be fully vaccinated by today.

And so because of that, we have got to get that knowledge out starting school.

Many of these kids are fairly healthy.

Many of these children are also under the age of five, and they have school aged children in their home.

And we know that the only way to protect the babies in our house who can't be vaccinated is to protect the parents by vaccinating them and to protect the siblings by vaccinating them.

So we have some work to do, and that work doesn't start in the hospital.

It starts in the community.

I am at.

I'm at Zeb1 Memorial today, so I'm not in Baton Rouge.

My family decided to get together for an atypical Christmas New Year's in the hot Louisiana December Sun and eat outside today and try to see each other and not as as great of a celebration as we would have wanted much better than last year when we were unvaccinated.

And so we'll sit outside and eat the stew that I already smelled before I came over here to get better internet.

And it's going to be a great afternoon.

But as I drove here and I've talked to you before about how much I love this drive to get home , I thought about how we here.

How do we get here again?

Why are we in another surge and and why do we have so many sick people?

And I thought about the doctor who trained me.

So Dr. Wayne LaHaye, who walked through this hall for just a tremendous number of years, delivered me.

He delivered my siblings, took out our tonsils, held our family member's hands as they passed and taught me a ton of life lessons.

But the biggest one he taught me is is how to use generational education.

He would visit with a person for minutes.

Take a look at them.

Write a few sentences in the chart and totally know what was written.

And after watching him for weeks and rounding with him for weeks, I asked him one day, How do you know it doesn't take too long to figure out that a patient's having a heart attack?

This patient said that bananas irritated them and you know that they were having an MRI, and he said, Oh, I'm giving these people all their lives.

I know what they complain about.

I know what medicines they're on and I know what they're going to come in.

It wasn't it wasn't Mystic.

He took decades of knowledge, and he knew his people and he got us through a ton of illnesses in this time.

And he is retired and we are poorer for that.

But as I think about coming home and I think about the lessons he taught me, I think about the people here.

We use generational knowledge every day.

My dad and I had a conversation months ago at the end of the Delta Surge, I told him that I'd finally gotten a chance to push hard my friend pastor, which was way overgrown.

And he said, Did you pop the hood of your tractor and clean out the filter inside?

I didn't know that was a filter under the hood of my tractor, I clean the outside, so I went to the barn and I cleaned it out.

Thank goodness that I probably would have ruined my tractor.

That's a generational knowledge.

That's I don't learn that at school.

It gets passed down, but it gets passed down and we survive because of it.

And that's how we survive as a community.

I am blocks away from the health department where I got every single vaccine when I was growing up.

That vaccine schedule was not decided, but my parents decided by the public health department.

People like Dr. Sokol, who just spoke to you.

It was decided by a group of people who knew that they had seen pandemics just like this, and they weren't going to see them again.

And my parents drove us there without any hesitation because they were not going to watch children on ventilators like they had seen during polio.

It is a community effort to end the pandemic.

It is not the hospital's effort.

We come to you today to talk about the sick people, but that's the end.

That's the failure of the community effort to end the pandemic.

How do we get through this and how do we not be here again this summer after everybody goes on summer vacation, because that's the next surge?

How do we end this current surge so that we can go to school now?

My kids are looking forward to some regular springtime activities.

So I know you are too.

We enter this pandemic with generational analogy, we're not using it.

When I went to fellowship, there was no pandemic happening, but I learned that vaccination testing and mitigation get you out of a pandemic.

I learned that because people long before I went to medical school were writing books about how to get out of pandemics.

This is not new.

We have got to vaccinate.

We have got to test if we're sick and if we're going somewhere this weekend and we need to mitigate, which means masking and slowing down to get out of the surge.

It's the three things.

It's the three things for two years, and we can do it.

We just have to commit.

And it's not committing to the people on this call today, and it's not committing to the hospital.

We're going to be there at the end.

We'll hold people's hands.

We'll hopefully get some better and we will ease some people out of their life.

But that is a failure of our community to commit to the same generational knowledge.

I guess my tractor going the next time I get on it.

Hopefully, sooner than later.

The grass is still growing.

That gets physicians to be the kind of physician you want to see that gets us through as a community.

So what we're asking today?

Well, the hospitals are asking to help, but mostly, I think what we're all asking each other just to ease ourselves into 2022 and hopefully have a much better year is use the things that have been given to us.

Use that generational knowledge.

Get vaccinated.

Go get your booster if you haven't yet.

Please slow down this weekend.

Let's mitigate ourselves out of this surge and get tested if you feel sick today so that we can try to take care of you.

Thank you for letting me speak today.

I really appreciate it, I'm going to pass it off to the next.

Thanks, Dr. Emile.

Hopefully, you all can hear me.

Thanks, Governor Edwards, for having us have this opportunity today, and many thanks to my esteemed colleagues across the.

The health continuum who have been fighting this multi-pronged war against COVID for months now.

The AMIKAM variant is here and it's demonstrated rapid available ability to spread throughout the state.

I'm here in New Orleans.

It spread faster than any of the other COVID variants.

Our test positivity rates have jumped up from the single digits to above the 25% mark just in the last week.

Furthermore, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of patients seen in the emergency room with COVID like illness.

As Dr. Sokol demonstrated in her charge, we've seen the same numbers.

60% of our 80 visits are COVID like illness right now.

We've also seen a rapid uptick in the number of patients admitted with COVID, just like I have been seen across the state.

And luckily, these patients seem a little bit less sick than in the prior waves.

But it's still early, very early, and it usually takes about two weeks after the start of the surge to see the most critically ill patients.

And so we're still not there yet and and hopefully we don't reach that stage.

But what's still unknown?

It is notable that about 77% of our patients are inpatients are unvaccinated and that the burden.

As noted by Dr. O'Neill in children is still high.

We have 13 patients hospitalized at Children's Hospital of New Orleans with COVID disease, and so that's dramatic for those kids and their lives.

one of the most challenging aspects of this al-Muqrin variant wave has been its effect on health care workers and their staffing.

We've had a large number of our team members who've been affected, either their themselves or their families or their loved ones, and that's that's challenging and going on to two years in this pandemic.

Luckily, we've been able to mitigate and continue delivery of our COVID and non-COVID care, and the new CDC guidelines help us do some of that.

So that's important.

But it's also important that, as Governor Edwards noted, patients are at risk and we want to make sure that we are remaining able to continue our care for the community for again COVID disease as well as non-COVID disease.

So what can you do?

And I think this is very important.

Vaccinate, vaccinate and get boosted?

There were two research briefs just published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine that demonstrated the tremendous benefit of vaccination.

A team in South Africa evaluated 130,000 PCR test based PCR tested patients and about 70,000 patients in the onikan wave that they experienced.

And they found that just even two doses of the Pfizer vaccine was about 70% effective at preventing hospitalization.

And this is in real world data.

In another article in the same journal, an Israeli team identified that three doses of the Pfizer vaccine was generating a neutralization titers that was well within the protective range against Armstrong.

And so it may not mean that you don't get infected, but you can still be very protected against being hospitalized, being that being diagnosed with severe illness or progressing and dying from COVID through vaccination.

Other things that you can do mask up indoors, avoid large gatherings, especially those that are outside of your immediate household.

And, of course, if you are sick or need urgent medical attention or emergency rooms are always available to you.

But as mentioned multiple times on this call, it's important that if you just aren't looking for testing, you utilize other testing resources and they can be found readily at LDH.

George Lakoff slash COVID testing through the two on one number or if you're in the New Orleans area at Redi-go Nola, that got.

Nationwide, we have about 300,000 cases of Arbitron every day.

We have twelve hundred Americans who die every day from COVID.

And I think it's important to look at those big numbers.

But what really matters is is the number one, the number one person that matters to you and that could be your your loved one, your family, your child, your parent.

It could be your niece that's newborn and can't get vaccinated.

It could be your aunt Sally, who makes the best pecan pie but is fighting breast cancer and maybe is vaccinated, but hasn't mounted as as robust of an immune response.

These are all reasons for all of us to step up, go above and beyond and get vaccinated.

And and it's for all of these reasons, all of these one reasons for each one of us that we I take the steps that are necessary and we know those.

As Dr. O'Neill mentioned, these are these are not unknown to us.

It's it's masking.

It's getting vaccinated.

It's boosting it socially distancing during this time of severe surge.

And so while there's a lot of numbers out there, perhaps the number that matters the most is that one, the one reason why we take these steps and make the necessary changes to our life.

So again, thanks.

Thanks, Governor Edwards.

Thanks to all the health care heroes that have fought this pandemic throughout.

And thanks for everyone that's that's doing their part to end this pandemic.

It has no thank you for allowing me to be a part of the panel to speak to our communities about what we are experiencing at our hospitals.

Some of the realities that have been spoken earlier are true for here in central Louisiana.

You know, our E.R.

volumes are doubling.

We're starting to see more patients that are coming in with COVID.

So this issue of not seeing a decrease in our infection rates with COVID, it seems to be on the rise as everyone I've spoken to.

But I like to take a different approach and kind of give a plea for our communities to help one another.

And the reason why I say that is because here at our hospitals, we're here for the communities and we're here to make sure that we have services available for those patients that will come here, that have acute diseases that are have had life long or life changing events in their lives.

And one of the things that we find ourselves seem to repeat ourselves what has happened earlier this year with the Delta variant, where we had many of our hospitals on diversion, where patients were coming to the E.R., were coming to the hospitals to seek care and there was no room available to be able to take care of that loved one that was brought to the hospitals.

That was a part of that community.

And we found ourselves trying to find different places throughout the states and other states to take them to get the care that they need.

And where we find ourselves today is is that we have an opportunity to ensure that our communities have access to care if we just follow some of the recommendations that we have all spoken about.

And that is how do we mitigate the spread of COVID?

Because if we continue on the trends that we are on today, even though it may not be as contagious as we think it is in the sense of hospitalizations, that does not mean that it will not get to where would cause us to have a higher rate of hospitalizations, which in effect would cause us not to be able to offer those services because we would be on the and we would go back to the dark days that we had earlier this year.

And it reminds me of a story.

I received a call from a patient, a family member who was needing to seek care, had a pacemaker, had been in before and then was needing some sort of general surgery.

And he was in acute pain and he came to one of our E.R.

And this was in the dark days of this summer as we were going through it.

He could not come to our hospital because we had no capacity because we will fall from the COVID patients that we had and we were making sure that we were taking care of them.

But now we're in a different state.

We have the vaccine that we can take.

We have the booster that we can take and over and over.

We talk about the social distancing being able to wash your hands, being able to wear the mask, all those things really make a difference.

And so my plea is to our communities allow us to be able to help you and help your loved ones by being able to make sure that we're available and have the capacity and not get to the days that we were early this year where we did not have the capacity.

Pretty much nowhere in the state of Louisiana, we were sending people out by just doing those simple things, encouraging one another to get vaccinated.

We're at a mass social distancing stay out of the large broods.

And if we can do that, we can really mitigate the spread and can keep us from repeating what we experienced earlier this year.

So on behalf of all of our hospitals, I know that coworkers and associates that the clinical staff and our physicians.

We thank everyone for being very supportive and governor.

We thank you for supporting us in this effort to be able to offer the best care we possibly can to the communities we're called to serve.

OK. At this point, and I am mindful that we've been on for about an hour and five minutes.

That's indicative of how much information there was to try to relate to everyone across the state and several.

You apologize for that.

But very important.

As with that, China is going to determine which of you get to ask some questions and will let us know to whom the question is directed.

Yes, sir, thank you, governor, and our first question is going to come from Chris Risotto with W.A.S.P.

Chris.

Hey, Governor, good afternoon.

I just wanted to ask a quick question about the COVID pills that the FDA just recently authorized.

I was just wondering what availability does it look like we have here in Louisiana for that medication?

And where can people find them right now?

Yeah.

Well, first of all, Chris, thank you very much for the question.

And by the way, everybody recognizes that this is an important step.

If we're going to take the pandemic and transition to more of an endemic situation with respect to COVID, you have to have antiviral pills to help prevent progression of disease from requiring hospitalization or causing death.

And there are two pills out there, one by Merck that is believed to be about 30% effective and one by Pfizer called packs a little bit that is thought to be about 70% effective.

And I was on a phone call with the White House on Monday, and the technology involved in these anti-viral pills, there's only so much you can do to speed up the process.

It takes months to to actually manufacture these pills.

They are in short supply.

And I think Theresa May have the numbers, but we actually based on the call we had this morning with our hospitals and some follow up from the Department of Health with our medical providers again later in the day, we're adjusting our plan for how to allocate this very limited and precious resource so that it has the maximum beneficial impact on our state as a whole.

But what I can tell you right now is that the pills are not yet in hand.

Number one number two is when they come in, they're going to be in very, very short supply.

And the pill, which is 30% effective, will be more plentiful than the Pfizer bill that is 70% effective.

But it's still going to be in short supply for some time to come.

Teresa, if you tell them what our plan is to to allocate those out.

Sure.

So the first allocation of Park Slope is that that will be received by Louisiana is a total of 740 for molnupiravir, which is the Merck pill that would be 3420.

So these are especially if you're thinking in the context of the cases that we have, this is very limited.

These are very limited quantities.

So what we recommend is that folks contact their health care provider.

Your health care provider can help determine if you're at risk and can help.

Direct you to how to get one of these a prescription that will write a prescription and then help direct you to get some of this medication.

It's not going to be available for everybody who needs it.

Unfortunately, we do expect supply to increase and we are providing additional information to health care providers about where these medications will be distributed and so that they will know how to refer the patients that are most appropriate to receive them.

So again, unfortunately not available for everyone who may need it, but we are.

We are putting them out and distributing as soon as we get them, and we're providing information updated information frequently to health care providers so that they have the information they need to direct their patients.

OK, thank you.

And our next question is going to come from Taylor Toole, who is with Katie Taylor.

Oh, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

So just going back to the talk about, you know, the schools as we're starting the school again after the new year.

I heard Miss Theresa talking about outbreaks being more common during meal times and also extracurriculars.

We're seeing that.

Could you clarify, please, for me, which one is more typical of seeing outbreaks come from the meal or extracurriculars?

And how can the average parent at home help ease their mind, so to speak?

Do we see us going back to a learning from home type of deals?

And I know you recommended people work from home adults if they have the ability?

So where do you stand on that?

And are we going to see a mask mandate going back across the line?

So I will answer the first part of your question, I think the mask mandate question may go to Governor Edwards, but keep in mind, we do have a public health recommendation in place to mask universally endorsed across settings, including K through twelve.

So what I what I can say to parents and again, I'm a parent with a child.

I have one in eighth grade and one in fifth grade.

And if schools implement these measures, then I do believe that there can be a real reduction in risk of transmission.

I feel.

Much, much more confident that even if my children get to become infected because of some transmission that happens in a school setting, they are both fully vaccinated and the K through twelve setting.

For the most part, all of these individuals are eligible for vaccination.

five and about right.

So I feel so much more confident than I did last year because I know even if they become infected, that they're going to be well protected from severe illness and hospitalization.

So that brings me a lot of comfort as a parent.

The other issue one of the reasons I listed all of these different strategies is because, especially with Omicron, nothing is going to be 100% effective.

This variant is going to slip through and sneak through and infect people.

That's why we have to be so diligent about all of these different measures.

But if schools and I think the role of parents really can be to help make sure that they advocate with their school administrators that these measures are implemented in each individual school, that they ensure that masking is in place, that it's going to be one of the most important measures as far as your question about mealtimes go .

We've had some outbreaks associated with times, definitely more that are associated with extracurricular activities.

That's something else that parents can do.

They can go to their school administrator and say, We agree.

We think that we shouldn't have these extracurricular activities right now.

We think that they need to be suspended.

Or you can pull your children out of extracurricular activity that they're continued because there is a real risk.

That's by far where we've seen the greatest number of outbreaks, which is why we took the step to make the recommendation, even though we don't want to deprive children of that opportunity .

So if my son was in basketball camp over winter break, I pulled him out because I felt the risk was too great and it wasn't a decision any of us was happy about.

But unfortunately, you know, health and wellbeing and reducing this transmission and stopping the surge are the priorities now.

And as far as the one other piece about testing your LDH right now offers a testing program for schools.

And so that's another way to keep people safe.

It's free of charge.

In fact, kids get incentives if they get tested, if they so choose.

So if if a parent has a child who attends a school that isn't participate in that program, they can certainly go and say, You know, we think this is a good idea if it's going to help keep a lot of people think, can we implement the testing program?

The free testing program in our school?

So that's another option that parents have.

But I think there are a lot of ways that they can help contribute to increasing the safety in the school for their children.

And Taylor, I think I thank you for the question.

There is not presently a mask mandate.

Now I will tell you, I believe that the recommendation that been made by the Department of Health is very important.

I can tell you that if you come to the governor's office, you're going to have to have a mask on it.

My people are going to be mask there.

And so I don't take it off the table because what what we cannot have happen is that our hospitals lose the ability, the capacity to render lifesaving care, and we will do a mask mandate before that happens.

But I would ask that people not focus on whether there's a mandate in place.

The recommendation is the same.

We know that masks work.

And so especially indoors with people that you don't live with, wear a mask and it just is so important.

And quite frankly, in the grand scheme of things, the inconvenience is so minor compared to what it's like to be in a hospital, struggling to get oxygen or watching a loved one struggle to get oxygen and know that they're sick and in pain.

And all of the anxiety that comes with that.

This is a very minor request.

And so I would encourage people to focus on the recommendation.

Let's make this happen so that we can get through this current surge.

And our next question comes from Bill Decker, who's with the Morgan City review.

Bill.

Bill, to be on Bill, if you would unmute yourself.

I could read this question.

Yes, OK, go ahead, governor.

OK. Dr. Fauci and other experts say Omicron is less severe than Delta.

Yet Louisiana hospitalizations tripled in less than two weeks.

You all are saying it's because the number of new infections is so high, and that was a question.

The answer to that is yes.

And I want people to understand that when when Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky and others give numbers, they're talking about the country as a whole.

And the speed of the al-Muqrin variant in terms of transmission in cases is not uniformly the same across the whole country.

And so if you average all 50 states, it may be, for example, that over the last week, hospitalizations have doubled.

But we know it's been more than that here in Louisiana.

And, you know, so so we know that it's it's a function of the transmission and that is true even if it is less virulent and it's just a function of math.

If there's ten times as many cases and the cases are only half as as virulent as they were before, you're still going to have more sick people, you're still going to have more people who need hospitalization.

And really, that's bearing out right now and there is a common denominator, and it's within people's ability to control this to a very large degree.

The more severe the disease is correlated with those individuals who are unvaccinated, the less severe is correlated with those people who are vaccinated in those.

So there's a continuum there and we all have a role to play.

But I thank you very much, Bill, for the question.

And and I can let Teresa follow up or Dr. O'Neill, anybody that wants to talk about the weather, it is more virulent or not.

And whether I got the question correct.

Thank you, did a beautiful job of answering it.

I think that that's that's the main answer.

You know, the other the other question.

We also know that more people are vaccinated now than previous surges, so that makes it a little bit more difficult to tease out.

Is it really that this particular variant might be causing less severe disease?

Or is it that the population as a whole is better protected?

But still, we expect that we expect hospitalizations to occur, especially among those that are unvaccinated.

And when you have, I have never, ever said when you have the volume of cases that we're seeing right now, unfortunately, they're going to continue to increase.

We won't see the effects for a little bit, but we're going to see increased hospitalizations continue.

OK, great, and we have two more questions.

Next, we will have Erica from WWL, Erica, please yourself.

Go ahead.

Hi, Governor Edwards.

My question is about large gatherings that we know are planned to happen.

We know there's visitors in New Orleans for New Year's Eve and people are planning gatherings.

The Sugar Bowl Saturday, another Saints game Sunday.

Are you considering any restrictions to prevent any of these large gatherings?

Thank you, Eric, for the question.

I want to go back real quick just for the purpose of illustrating what the math would look like.

I said, you know, even if it's half as Maryland, I have no idea whether it's half or the same or more that I was doing that.

So I don't want anybody saying that that I'm I'm saying today that that the disease caused by Omicron is not as virulent as the disease caused by other strains.

I will tell you, Erica, that I have made changes to my plans because a month ago I would have told you I was going to be at the Sugar Bowl and the Saints game.

I will be at neither for those people who are fully vaccinated, boosted and they want to wear a mask.

I think it can be done reasonably, safely.

It's just not some.

It's not a risk that I'm willing to take.

It is inconsistent with the recommendations that that I'm getting from the Department of Health right now.

And quite frankly, it's inconsistent with my own risk tolerance right now, so I will not be doing either of those things if people are going to gather for New Year's Eve activities.

We hope that they will do that at home limited to their nuclear family and in if it's going to be more than that, that the gatherings or at least mall that people test, if possible, that they do it outside.

There's a whole lot of things you can do to make your your events safer.

But but we know that the more people you have, the closer together they are.

And if it's indoors, that gets towards the sides of the risk spectrum.

That, in my opinion, is just is just too high and not worth it.

I don't believe you will be seeing me put in place any orders with respect to mandating certain things relative to that.

But the guidance is what I just gave you and what Teresa went through in some detail earlier.

OK, next, we'll have Shannon from be our proud Shannon.

Hi, there.

I wanted to ask about testing with the at home antigen test, there are some concerns that it's not able to pick up.

Omicron is separate, except for maybe on specific days after exposure to one of the doctors.

Talk about those concerns and also for the governor.

Are there any efforts to increase testing in the states since there is such a high demand right now?

Yeah.

first of all, the second part is absolutely and we are increasing testing across the state.

The National Guard by itself administered something close to 4500 tests yesterday.

They've never done that many tests in one day, and that's just one piece of what we're trying to do.

But the testing, the increase is largely right now or on the PCR side, which is the more accurate side.

It's less convenient than purchasing an at home test and antigen test or rapid testing and going home and taking it, but quite simply, the availability of those.

Is is a very short supply.

Right, so we are increasing the testing that's going to be available for people across the state.

We do believe that the number of at home tests that are going to be available in the coming weeks and months will be much more plentiful then than they have been at any point to date.

And before I turn it over and then after this question, I'll come back and close out if someone out there is having a hard time getting a test for any reason.

And they are symptomatic, they should regard themselves as COVID positive, and they they should they should isolate as a result of that.

If you'll remember back in the early days of the of the pandemic, we didn't have testing, but we knew we had a lot of spread and we had a lot of sick people and we were sort of back to the same thing.

We have a lot more testing than we have to had then, but we didn't have this kind of cases.

And so until the number of tests increase and people can can take those tests very quickly upon believing they have been exposed or developing symptoms and so forth.

If you have symptoms, please for your own sake, for the sake of your family and your community, treat yourself as as as positive until you can confirm that.

And look, if your symptoms remain very mild, you may never need to confirm it.

But in the meantime, you shouldn't unreasonably expose others to the bathroom.

So with that, and with respect to specific testing efforts.

Teresa, if you will take that question.

Sure, so it does appear that antigen tests are less sensitive, less able to pick up a positive Omicron case than they were able to do among previously circulating lineages.

Don't yet have data about any sort of quantitative data about the reduced sensitivity, but that is what we're hearing both anecdotally and also from our federal partners that the antigen test is less sensitive when it comes to detecting on the ground.

So another reason to really seek out PCR testing when, when it's available and when that is possible.

OK, so this has been a very long press conference on the day before New Year's Eve and governor, if I could interrupt just one second.

We have one very last question.

Taylor from AT&T wants to know why are CDC quarantine guidelines changing to an easier amount of time than the previous information is so much more transmissible?

That is the very last question.

Yeah.

So nobody on this call works for the CDC or was responsible for that.

But I've listened to what Dr. Walensky and others have said, and it's a function of changing science, but also with what they believe the people across the country will tolerate with respect to the science.

It appears that five days is when most people actually would be transmitting the disease or the virus, that they would be infecting others.

And that's about two days before symptom onset and for two to three days afterwards.

And so the five days is about right from a science perspective.

They also believe that if you left it at the longer time period that that people may decide, well, the burden just isn't worth it.

That is too inconvenient.

It's going to cause too many problems at work that's going to cause some problems at home and so forth.

And then you have critical occupations.

And we talked about we talked about, for example, staffing shortages, exacerbating our challenges with respect to, you know, providing care in our hospitals.

Well, if people are kept out longer than necessary, then you make that worse than it has to be.

And it's not just in that setting, but it could be another critical areas, whether it's transportation or you name it.

So, so the CDC has explained the change has been rooted in in both science on the one hand and what people will tolerate on the other.

And quite frankly, if people won't tolerate the longer period, then you're actually going to be safer having the shorter people period that more people will tolerate.

But when we we actually ask people to abide by the recommendations coming by whether it's from the CDC or from our own Department of Health.

And that's that's the best thing that we can do for one another.

But it is it is a good question, and I understand that it's not universally praised among even the scientific or the medical community.

But but it is what the CDC has done.

And I will tell you, just as a matter of fact, I don't believe that there is a hospital that we spoke with today and we spoke to all the big hospitals in each of our nine regions who is and hasn't already or isn't planning to adopt the shorter Five-Day period so that they can get their workers back into hospital to render that lifesaving care and open up more beds just as soon as possible so that we can continue to to deal with the increasing demands being placed on our health care workers and providers.

So Shawna, you had said two questions.

We're three and there are four.

That's it.

Governor, no more questions.

Thank all of you.

This is not what any of us want to be doing on the day before New Year's Eve, but it is very important because you still have time out there to change your plans to make sure you're doing things that that are as safe as possible.

I'm asking you to to please be concerned, be prudent.

Be responsible.

Let's not be panicked.

That doesn't.

That doesn't help.

And it's not wanted, quite frankly.

But, but but concern is very much warranted.

We go into 2022 full of hope, and I do too.

I'm praying for a much better year for for all of our people across the state of Louisiana.

I ask you to join me in that prayer for also for the country as a whole.

But it's going to be a very difficult month of January, and we've been doing this in March.

It'll be four years.

And I ask everybody, if you can't think of another reason.

To comply with abide by the recommendations that we have painstakingly set forth for you today, most of which are nothing new, they're just the weird things that we've known for a long time.

But if you can't think of any other reason to do it, think about our exhausted health care workers.

Given whether they're doctors or nurses or paramedics or or respiratory therapist, whoever they are, they've been at this an awful long time.

And I know how this can be when they see that we're not doing as well as we should be.

Twelve and a half months after we started vaccinating people, so let's let's do what we can please for our selves and our families, and for our health care workers and for everybody else.

Most important among these is getting vaccinated.

It boosted when you're eligible and then and then especially while we are surging as we are following all these other mitigation recommendations.

So with that, thank you all very much for continuing to cover this.

I do look forward to a much better 2020, too.

I hope we can turn the page on the Omicron surge just as soon as possible and in the best possible condition, but largely that's up to all of us.

And so your health is very much wanted and also your prayers.

Thank you and God bless.

Thank you, Governor.

Thank you to all of our panelists.

This has been recorded.

If you need it, contact our office.