Governor Edwards “Shelter in Place” order is now in effect, residents are expected to stay home as a mitigation technique of further virus spread. 34 people are dead from the state’s 1,172 confirmed COVID-19 cases. 41 of the state’s 64 parishes are reporting finding the illness. As of Sunday, about 28% of the state’s at-the-time 860 cases resulted in hospitalizations. According to a UL-Lafayette study, Louisiana has one of the fastest growth rates of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the world. Dr. Gary Wagner, Acadiana Business Economist Endowed Chair at UL-Lafayette says he will continue to track to the statistics and share them with the Department of Health. At first, the cases were in the single digits but then they started to double daily.
The findings compared the state’s numbers for the first 13 days to other recorded numbers of other cities and nations first two weeks.
The National Federation of Independent Business says 76% of small businesses are now being negatively impacted by the spread of the coronavirus, up from 23% ten days ago. NFIB state director Dawn Starns says of those that are seeing disruption, the biggest factor to the increase is slowed sales.
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The state has ordered that many businesses shut down in an effort to slow the spread. Starns commends Governor Edwards handling of the pandemic, saying he’s been great at keep businesses in the loop.
LSU says they will only have a limited number of essential personnel on campus as part of the governor’s stay-at-home order. The campus is set to remain a ghost town through the end of the spring semester but Interim President Dr. Thomas Galligan says they’re willing to be flexible if the situation improves.