The Louisiana Department of Health on Wednesday reclassified St. Tammany Parish in the high-risk category for COVID infections on the state’s four-point community risk scale, the latest in a recent string of troubling signs health experts say could portend a summer surge in local coronavirus cases.
“To be clear, there’s no cause for panic,” St. Tammany Health System infectious disease specialist Dr. Mike Hill said. “But the arrival of the new, highly transmissible Delta-plus strain of COVID in our community combined with low vaccination rates is certainly cause for concern.”
Dr. Hill stressed that the vast majority of COVID patients admitted to STHS’s Covington hospital over the past several weeks have been unvaccinated and that many of them have been younger than those admitted at the height of the pandemic. Given the recent rise in infections, he urged unvaccinated residents to schedule their shots as soon as possible.
“There are three keys to beating this thing: vaccinations, vaccinations and vaccinations,” Dr. Hill said. “They are safe, they are here and they are the answer.”
Before Wednesday, St. Tammany Parish had for months been classified in the “moderate” risk category on the state’s four-point scale, which goes from “lower” to “highest.”
The parish’s move to the high-risk category, which is the second-highest category on the scale, reflects a recent jump in St. Tammany Parish’s COVID positivity rate. That number, which was below 2% on June 20, has ballooned to 7.1% over the past couple of weeks.
Experts say those figures are directly tied to the state’s low vaccination rate. According to the COVID data clearinghouse COVID Act Now, only 35.4% of Louisiana residents are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
In St. Tammany Parish, that number is slightly better, with 38.7 of people currently fully vaccinated. In neighboring Washington Parish, that number sits at 29%, and in Tangipahoa Parish it’s at 27.9%.
Those numbers, and the resulting higher infection rates, landed Louisiana on a list published Wednesday by the industry publication Becker’s Hospital Review of 21 states where COVID-related hospitalizations are rising.
At St. Tammany Health System, the number of inpatients under COVID care – which was at zero on June 24 – hit nine on Tuesday (July 5). That’s the highest it’s been since March 10.