Coronavirus reaches 2 Louisiana prisons as cases increase
Melinda Deslatte | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 7 months AGO
A man walks past a closed Cafe Du Monde, in the French Quarter of New Orleans, normally bustling with tourists, but now nearly completely deserted due to the new coronavirus pandemic, Friday, March 27, 2020. While rich in history and culture, New Orleans is economically poor, and the people here are not necessarily well-positioned to weather this latest storm. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A man walks with some possessions alongside Jackson Square in the French Quarter of New Orleans, normally bustling with tourists, but now nearly deserted due to the new coronavirus pandemic, Friday, March 27, 2020. While rich in history and culture, New Orleans is economically poor, and the people here are not necessarily well-positioned to weather this latest storm. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards answers questions from reporters about his state's rapid escalation of coronavirus cases, on Thursday, March 26, 2020, in Baton Rouge, La. (AP Photo/Melinda Deslatte)
Boarded up businesses are seen along Jackson Square, normally bustling with tourists, in the nearly deserted French Quarter of New Orleans, due to the new coronavirus pandemic, Friday, March 27, 2020. While rich in history and culture, New Orleans is economically poor, and the people here are not necessarily well-positioned to weather this latest storm. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A worker rests alongside Jackson Square in the French Quarter of New Orleans, normally bustling with tourists, but now nearly deserted due to the new coronavirus pandemic, Friday, March 27, 2020. While rich in history and culture, New Orleans is economically poor, and the people here are not necessarily well-positioned to weather this latest storm. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Jackson Square, normally bustling with tourists, is seen deserted in the French Quarter of New Orleans, due to the new coronavirus pandemic, Friday, March 27, 2020. While rich in history and culture, New Orleans is economically poor, and the people here are not necessarily well-positioned to weather this latest storm. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A sign indicating an arrival area for ambulances is seen outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, part of which is being converted into a hospital due to the new coronavirus epidemic, in New Orleans, Friday, March 27, 2020. Officials are standing up what could be the largest hospital in the country, said Joseph Kanter, assistant state health officer at the Louisiana Department of Health. It will be built in the convention center, a sprawling facility along the Mississippi River that is generally packed with a revolving parade of conventions and conferences but is currently closed. (AP …
Service and entertainment industry employees who have been laid off due to the new coronavirus pandemic, exercise social distancing as they line up for meals cooked by chef Isaac Toups at his restaurant Toups Meatery in New Orleans, Friday, March 27, 2020. While rich in history and culture, New Orleans is economically poor, and the people here are not necessarily well-positioned to weather this latest storm. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Chef Isaac Toups, left, hands out cold beers to service and entertainment industry employees who have been laid off due to the new coronavirus pandemic, at his restaurant Toups Meatery in New Orleans, Friday, March 27, 2020. Toups has been cooking up meals for those laid off. While rich in history and culture, New Orleans is economically poor, and the people here are not necessarily well-positioned to weather this latest storm. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Two workers at Louisiana state prisons have tested positive for the coronavirus, forcing some inmates into quarantine and heightening concerns that the tightly packed populations are at risk for an outbreak in a state where the virus's death toll exceeded 100 Friday.
The Louisiana Department of Corrections announced the confirmed cases of COVID-19 in a statement Thursday evening that didn't name the two prisons where the employees worked, citing security concerns. The workers had limited contact with other staff and inmates and were isolated at home, the agency said. No inmates have tested positive for the virus, the corrections department said, and inmates who may have been exposed to the workers are quarantined.
“I can assure you that we’re doing everything that we can in order to protect the people that we have in our custody in our state’s prisons,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said Friday. “It is a challenge, just like it’s a challenge for everybody across the state of Louisiana.”
Civil rights groups have urged Edwards to take additional public health precautionary measures in Louisiana's prison facilities, to protect the people housed in state custody and educate the staff about how to avoid disease spread.
“Imprisoned and detained people are highly vulnerable to outbreaks of contagious illnesses such as COVID-19. They are housed in close quarters and are often in poor health,” the ACLU of Louisiana, the Southern Poverty Law Center and other organizations wrote in a letter to the Democratic governor earlier this month.
Louisiana has discontinued in-person visits from family and friends of prisoners, in an effort to limit the risk of virus spread. Workers entering the prisons are screened for symptoms and aren't allowed in if they have a fever, Edwards said.
Louisiana has surpassed 2,700 people known to be infected, with 119 residents dead from COVID-19 — an increase of 36 deaths from a day earlier, according to the health department. Edwards said Louisiana has the third-highest rate of virus cases per capita and the second-highest death rate per capita, with the New Orleans region on track to run out of ventilators to care for the hardest-hit patients by the first week of April.
“We have put in many days ago orders for 12,000 ventilators,” Edwards said. “To date, we have received exactly 192.”
The number of virus patients requiring ventilators continued to rise Friday. The health department said 773 infected people were hospitalized, with 270 of them needing ventilation. That's up from 239 patients needing ventilators a day earlier.
Although most people recover and many suffer only mild symptoms, COVID-19 can cause serious illness including respiratory problems for some, including the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. The disease is highly contagious.
In new data about Louisiana's COVID-19 deaths, Edwards said early analysis shows 41% of the people who have died were diabetic, 31% had kidney disease and 28% were obese. In a state with high rates of obesity and diabetes, those numbers suggested Louisiana residents could be particularly at risk for some of the virus's worst impacts.
While Louisiana's virus hot spot remained New Orleans, troubling signs emerged of a spike in cases in the Shreveport/Bossier City area. The state health department identified “clusters” of the virus in eight nursing and retirement homes around Louisiana.
Florida joined Texas in requiring travelers from the New Orleans area to go into mandatory quarantine for two weeks upon arrival, but Florida went further — including travelers from anywhere in Louisiana. Edwards didn't raise objections, saying he was encouraging people from Louisiana to stay home and wouldn't second-guess other governors' decisions.
In New Orleans, state and city leaders were scrambling to create more hospital space to handle the expected surge in infected patients. The city's convention center will serve as an overflow site, with the first 120-bed unit ready by the end of the weekend, Edwards said. Two 250-bed federal field hospitals will be set up at the convention center, Edwards said.
Medical students were getting credentialed early, so hospitals can quickly hire them and fill staffing shortages.
With widespread business shutdowns because of the “stay-at-home” order, Louisiana's economic development agency created a state hotline for business questions related to COVID-19. ___
Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak