The Lambda variant, first discovered in Peru, has now been found in Northwest Louisiana. Matt Doyle has the story.
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LSU faculty addressed the administration on Friday over their pandemic concerns as the university plans to return to in-person instruction for most classes. Brooke Thorington has more
Cut 2 (32)…I’m Brooke Thorington”
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Interfor Corporation announces it will invest eight million dollars to revive the idled Georgia Pacific sawmill near DeQuincy. The governor’s office says the project will create 170 new jobs. Southwest Louisiana Economic Development Alliance CEO George Swift says the mill was shut down last May due to the pandemic
Interfor plans to restart operations in the first half of 2022. Swift says Interfor is based in Canada and is one of North America’s largest lumber producers…
The mill near DeQuincy has an annual lumber production capacity of 200 million board feet. Swift says the revived plant will support significant logging and logistics activity in the region…
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For the fourth straight day, Louisiana has set a record for the number of COVID patients in the hospital. It’s now up to 2,421 and according to health officials, 90-percent of the hospitalized are unvaccinated. Governor John Bel Edwards says the state is at the leading edge of this fourth surge
The state health department says over the past two weeks about one percent of Louisiana residents have become infected with COVID-19. Edwards says more than six thousand children have tested positive this week, which is why children five and up should wear a mask in schools
Edwards says nearly 38-percent of the state’s population is vaccinated one of the lowest rates in the nation. But he says the number of people seeking coronavirus vaccines has grown by 300-percent during this surge…
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Seven Lamba COVID variants have been sequenced in Louisiana so far, all clustered in Northwest Louisiana.
LSU Health Shreveport Professor of Microbiology and Immunology Jeremy Kamil says Lambda is not an offshoot of the now-dominant Delta variant.
Lambda likely crossed the border from Texas where the variant is more prevalent and is thought to be responsible for a surge of cases in Peru, where it now is responsible for 97% of new cases.
Kamil says right now there’s not enough data to know whether Lambda is any more transmissible or virulent than other strains, and state health officials will be keeping a close eye on it.
While seven Lambda variants have been sequenced in Louisiana compared to 940 Delta variants. Most positive tests are not sampled and levels of variant circulation are largely estimated.
Kamil says there’s no reason to believe that this new variant will bypass vaccines.
The was a report suggesting Chinese vaccines were ineffective against Lambda in Peru, but Kamil says there’s no hard data to back that up, and the numbers could be misleading due to the country’s low 17% vaccination rate. Lambda now makes up about 97 percent of new cases in Peru.
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LSU faculty expressed their concerns on Friday over the return of in-person teaching especially with only 34-percent of the students reportedly vaccinated. They want the option to teach classes virtually or limit in-person capacity to 50-percent. Kevin Yua (rhymes with wow) Coordinator of LSU World Languages, Literatures and Cultures says previous mitigation rules were not always followed.
LSU President William Tate told faculty at the meeting that once the vaccine receives full FDA approval he intends to issue a vaccine mandate.
History Professor Meredith Veldman questioned school leaders over their true concern for the safety of the university’s students and staff when a statement on their website claims it’s a priority, yet their actions do not.
Veldman says President Tate should follow the science and allow instructors to choose their teaching modes, 100-percent remote, hybrid with 50-percent occupancy for its on-campus component, or in-person with 50-percent capacity. She says the pandemic is at worse levels now than it ever was in spring 2020 when the school went entirely remote.
There was no official response from the board to faculty members.