Thread by @BlakePater

.@LouisianaGov kicks off his press conference congratulating this week's winners of the Shot At A Million campaign, who each won $100K prizes for getting vaccinated against COVID-19. Registration for the $1M jackpot ends soon. #lagov theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/ne…

. @LouisianaGov: "Quite simply the delta variant is an absolute gamechanger, superimposed as it is on a state like Louisiana that is not sufficiently vaccinated." #lagov

A total of 21,543 people tested positive for the coronavirus for the first time over the past seven days, amounting to almost 580 more confirmed cases than during the worst week of the third wave in January. That includes 4,230 new confirmed cases reported on Friday.

Louisiana continues to have the highest COVID-19 case growth rate per capita in the country. "That is not a distinction that we want to have." #lagov

Edwards says that over the last 24 hours, he's received numerous requests from hospitals to reinstate a mask mandate, which he is "seriously considering," but they're going to review recent data that came out from the CDC on transmissibility among vaxxed residents #lagov

45 hospitals in Louisiana have requested additional staffing help, which Edwards said they're relying on the feds to help with, additionally they're setting up a surge facility at Baton Rouge General Mid City #lagov

"There are more people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Baton Rouge than there was in the entire state a month ago," Edwards says #lagov

Edwards re-ups his request that residents -- vaxxed or not -- wear masks indoors. "We have to slow transmission and case growth. We have to give our hospitals a break," Edwards says #lagov

"You know, when the facts change and you learn new things, as in the field of epidemiology and science you do all the time, you have to change your approach, you can’t keep doing the same thing and hoping for a new outcome," Edwards says, referring to CDC's new masking guidance

Louisiana's chief public health official, @JoeKanter : "It is not an over-exaggeration to say that it's as bad now as it has been at any other time during the pandemic," adding that the trajectory isn't showing any signs of slowing down #lagov

"Hospitals are literally bursting at the seems right now." 11.7% of ER visits are for COVID-like illnesses, @JoeKanter says, the highest Louisiana has been during the entire pandemic #lagov

Preliminary data suggest that 1 person infected with the delta variant will infect 6 to 10 other people. "It's hard to turn that around if you don't change behavior," @JoeKanter says #lagov

Hospitalizations are 7 times higher than they were a month ago, @JoeKanter says. "We cannot jeopardize the ability of our hospitals to provide acute care."

.@JoeKanter repeats that 45 hospitals have reached out to the state in need of additional staff. "The nursing shortage is not a state issue, it's a national issue right now," he says. @emily_woodruff_ and I wrote about this earlier this week #lagov theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/ne…

Hospitals in Louisiana are getting dangerously close to turning to crisis standards of care. "What hospitals have to do when they reach capacity, these are all difficult decisions," Kanter says. @emily_woodruff wrote about these capacity limits nola.com/news/coronavir…

.@JoeKanter urges those who are COVID-positive and early in their diagnosis to ask about monoclonal antibodies, which are effective at keeping people who aren't terribly sick from needing hospitalization #lagov

Those who are not fully vaccinated make up:
90.4% of call new cases of COVID
89.3% of COVID hospitalizations
85% of COVID deaths

"It seems like with the preliminary data and what was released today, it seems like the risk of transmission in vaccinated or unvaccinated is the same if you get COVID," @JoeKanter says. "That data continues to grow pointing to equal transmissibility of people who are infected."