Louisiana COVID Shows Results of Delta Variant, Low Immunization Rate

New Orleans, August 4 (Reuters)-Low vaccination rates and more infectious delta variants converge as the United States and the world face the latest stages of a pandemic, and a new COVID in Louisiana- 19 is causing a crisis.

Thomas Madden said his 13-year-old son Gabriel was fighting back. This week, Madden took Gabriel to a Lakeside Shopping Center on the outskirts of New Orleans to vaccinate at a site operated by Oxner Health System, Louisiana’s largest non-profit provider.

“This variant of the Delta surprised my wife,” Madden said he was waiting with Gabriel in an indoor mall shortly after receiving the shot. “But it really was up to him. He was a little nervous about the start of school soon, so he wanted to get it.”

Many people wore masks at Lakeside Shopping Center. Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that Americans begin wearing masks indoors in virtually infected areas, including most of the country today. The CDC cited the rapid spread of the Delta variant. As a result, COVID-19 is more likely to be transmitted by fully vaccinated people, officials say.

On Monday, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards ordered residents to mask indoors again. On Wednesday, state officials said they had set a record of 2,247 inpatients with COVID.

According to Reuters, there were more than 200 million cases of coronavirus worldwide on Wednesday. According to Reuters, it took more than a year for COVID-19 cases to reach 100 million, but the next 100 million were reported in just over six months. The United States accounts for one-seventh of infections, with a surge in Louisiana and other low-vaccination states.

According to a Reuters analysis of state and county data, Louisiana’s immunization rate was ranked 47th among the US states on the first dose. According to the latest data, 43% of Luizianas were first vaccinated and only 37.1% were fully vaccinated. The figures for the entire United States were 57.9% and 49.7%, respectively. (Figures on US cases and vaccinations)

(((Reuters Global Vaccination Tracker).

Dr. Joseph Canter, Louisiana’s Chief Medical Officer, said the state at the epicenter of the early pandemic was “the worst place ever in a pandemic.”

According to Canter, the most difficult challenges in Louisiana today are staffing and hospital capacity. Even before the proliferation of Delta variants, more than 6,000 nurses were open throughout the state.

Democratized and tired

In the early days of the pandemic, state officials could rely on federal support or nurses from other states. Currently, the staffing holes are too large for the small federal teams available that have arrived to make a big impact. And Delta is causing a surge across the country at the same time, sucking up nursing resources.

Ecoee Rooney, President of the Louisiana Nurses Association, said:

Rooney said nursing staff are beyond fatigue and, like nursing staff across the country, are deeply depressed in the face of what they know is a preventable surge. rice field.

“Some COVID patients don’t even think they have COVID because they refuse to believe that COVID exists,” Rooney said. “If people aren’t vaccinated and don’t wear masks, they’re under the brunt of frustration and anxiety about what our future might look like.”

Vaccination rate is different

Kevin Alexander, Sergeant of the Louisiana Guard, is helping to run a vaccination and testing site at Louis Armstrong Park in New Orleans.

“It’s up and down. Within the last two weeks, we’ve done 500 tests a day, compared to 250 a few weeks ago,” Alexander said.

Late Tuesday afternoon, he was guarding a deserted parking lot where vaccinations and tests would take place. On Wednesday morning he had little traffic.

Immunization rates vary by county and state throughout the United States. 32-year-old Kaytlyn Byers visited New Orleans from Pennsylvania this week. In Pennsylvania, 65.9% of the population was vaccinated at least once and 52.6% were fully vaccinated.

Buyers, who had been vaccinated a few months ago, said Louisiana was unaware that it was a Delta hotspot.

“We were shocked that they revived the duty of the mask and it came into effect today,” Buyers said while standing on Bourbon Street with a drink in her hand. “I was convinced that the rules here in the south would be looser than in Pennsylvania’s hometown.”

On Tuesday night, on the famous street of Big Easy, the festival was completely tilted around her. It smells eternal like yesterday’s party burned in the hot sun of today.

Buyers said he knew people who were vaccinated and still had a breakthrough COVID infection. She carefully said she would be mostly outdoors for the rest of her visit.

Report by Brad Brooks, New Orleans Additional report by Anurag Maan, Bangalore Edited by Donna Bryson and Matthew Lewis

Our criteria: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.