The growth in the number of known COVID-19 cases in Louisiana has held steady at around 2.5 percent since Sunday, April 12.
The Louisiana Department of Health reported 586 new cases Friday afternoon, a growth of 2.6 percent from yesterday.
Here's what the full week looked like:
April 12: 2.9 percent (581 new cases)
April 13: 2.04 percent (421 new cases)
April 14: 2.39 percent (502 new cases)
April 15: 2.01 percent (433 new cases)
April 16: 2.65 percent (581 new cases)
April 17: 2.6 percent (586 new cases)
There are 23,118 known cases of COVID-19 in Louisiana. State and commercial labs have completed a combined 131,987 tests. (That's about 17.5 percent of tests coming back positive since this began.) There are 5,906 known cases in Orleans Parish, 5,476 known cases in Jefferson Parish and 1,424 known cases in East Baton Rouge Parish.
Another 57 people were reported dead in the last 24 hours, according to the LDH. That brings the COVID-19 death toll in the state to 1,213 people. In Orleans Parish, 317 people have died. In Jefferson Parish, 269 have died, and in East Baton Rouge Parish, 66 have died.
Meanwhile, the number of people in hospitals with COVID-19 continues to drop. It's down another 46 today, for a total decrease of 266 since April 13. And the number of those people on ventilators is also down again, by 33. That number has dropped in 11 of the last 13 days, and is overall down by 208 since April 4.
The improving availability of hospital beds and ventilators across the state reflects those decreases.
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