Tuesday morning Governor Edwards said Louisiana will remain in Phase 2 of the coronavirus recovery.  Governor John Bel Edwards told 107.3 talk radio in Baton Rouge of the extension Tuesday morning.  The story is also being reported by New Orleans media outlets.  Just how long that extension would be for is not certain at this time.

During his media briefing Tuesday evening Edwards confirmed the extension.  He said that he will hold another briefing for the media at 11:30 Wednesday.  And Edwards promised details on the extension of Phase Two during that briefing. 

The order to be extended requires masks be worn by people in public and in businesses, requires six-feet social distancing, limits most businesses to 50 percent of normal capacity, and requires bars to remain closed.

The Governor was quoted by WWL in New Orleans. “We’ve got to see an extension of the proclamation, exactly what that extension is going to be I don’t know yet,” he said but he said that an announcement would be made soon.  The current proclamation expires on Friday.

Edwards cited four major factors in the decision to extend that included:

• Having the K-12 and college populations returning to campus
• Possibly having to use mass transit to evacuate residents in Hurricane Laura’s path and having to use shelters
• Not having the level of information and data they normally do as many of the state’s drive-thru testing sites are shuttered this week due to tropical storms
• Despite doing better on key coronavirus numbers, the state is still seeing “more new cases over the last seven days than you want to see per 100,000 population.

“About half of our parishes are still well above 10 percent positivity.”

He said he had a call with Dr. Birx from the White House COVID Task Force and that she still had some concerns about the state of coronavirus in Louisiana.

Edwards also said that he is concerned because only hospitals and clinics are testing right now since most of the drive-thru testing has been suspended due to the storms.

“We’re going to be blinded this week on data to affect our decisions,” he said.

Figures from the Louisiana Department of Health issued Tuesday at noon indicated that there have been two more COVID-19 deaths in Red River Parish since last Thursday.  The number of residents who have died of the virus is put at 19.  309 parish residents have tested positive.