Louisiana sees largest single-day increase in deaths but decrease in new cases

Louisiana health officials on Tuesday reported that the state had recorded its highest-yet number of deaths from coronavirus over a 24-hour period, even as the rate of new cases has fallen in the state.

A NOLA.com analysis tracking the rate of the disease’s spread indicated that 70 people died overnight from coronavirus symptoms, while the number of new cases reported Tuesday dropped under 1,500.

News of the declining rate of confirmed cases comes one day after the state’s governor, John Bel Edwards (D), announced that the state was beginning to see signs of “flattening the curve,” meaning an end to rising rates of new confirmed cases of the virus.

“We are hopeful we’re starting to see the beginning of flattening the curve,” said the governor on Monday. “We have to keep doing everything we’ve been doing to have the best possible outcome.”

“We’ve bought ourselves more time that allows us to continue to surge our medical capacity and continue to flatten the curve,” he added. “And all of this stuff works in concert. So we’ve got to keep doing everything that we’ve been doing to have the best possible outcome.”

A day earlier Edwards had predicted on CNN that the state would soon run out of ventilators and hospital beds, a prediction he revised on Monday. The state recorded a drop of 33 in the total number of patients on ventilators between Monday and Tuesday, according to NOLA.com.

The state has now confirmed more than 16,000 cases of the disease, and reported nearly 600 dead.