NEW ORLEANS — Tuesday marked a grim milestone in Louisiana's battle against COVID-19: More than 2,000 people have died from the virus in the state, according to the Louisiana Dept. of Health.
But there was also some positive news. For the first time since March, less than 200 COVID-19 patients are on ventilators.
As of May 5, 194 coronavirus patients in Louisiana require a ventilator. That's down from the peak of 571 patients on April 4.
Though the lower number of patients on ventilators is connected to the number of new deaths reported Tuesday (51), it's also a sign that more people are recovering and less people are in need of critical care.
The number of ventilators available in the state was the issue at the forefront of the virus response, with Gov. John Bel Edwards warning the state had been on track to run out of the life-saving respiratory machine by early April.
The state, however, did not run out, and by mid-April the number of ventilators was the first metric to start consistently improving across the state.
Louisiana was able to increase their ventilator supply by thousands in the span of a few weeks, purchasing them from private vendors and receiving them from the national stockpile.
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