The New Orleans region is now projected to run out of ventilators for COVID-19 patients on April 6th. The state received 150 ventilators from the feds today, but that number has already been factored into models warning of a shortage this weekend. Governor Edwards says at least…
Cut 10 (09) “…ICU”
490 COVID-19 patients are on ventilators in Louisiana as of the noon update.
LSU’s DeepDrug team is using artificial intelligence to analyze anti-viral drugs, or drug combinations that could be used to treat COVID-19 patients. Once the ten to fifteen possibilities are discovered, LSU Computer Science Professor Supratik Mukhopadhyay (Moo-co-pod-a) says LSU will move to test them in more traditional clinical and lab settings.
Cut 14 (08) “…week”
DeepDrug is a current semifinalist for the IBM Watson AI X-PRIZE.
Baton Rouge Congressman Garret Graves is encouraging small businesses to get a jump on filling out applications for the Payroll Protection Act. Small businesses can apply to receive low-interest loans, with money that is used for payroll being forgiven. Graves says the funding is not intended to float the payrolls of small businesses for the rest of the year.
The program is part of the $2.2 trillion emergency relief legislation.
As oil prices continue to drop the outlook for Louisiana workers in the industry continues to look bleak. Oil is trading in the low twenties and President of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association Gifford Briggs says the situation is dire and two weeks ago when he surveyed members the predictions were extreme.