The St. Tammany Health System said Monday that it is seeing a "concerning turn" in the number of COVID-19 positive patients in its care in recent days.
As of Monday, Melissa Hodgson, the spokesperson for the hospital system, said there were 16 patients in COVID care among the 170 total adult patients that were hospitalized.
"This is a concerning turn from recent days of zero, one or a few COVID patients in our care," Hodgson said. "Alarmingly, patients presenting to our facilities with COVID are consistently the unvaccinated members of our community. COVID is preventable with vaccination."
The hospital says the Delta variant of COVID-19 is now responsible for 59% of new cases in Louisiana, due to the state's overall low vaccination rate. The Delta variant is estimated to be twice as contagious as the original strain of COVID-19 and evades the antibodies patients developed if they were previously infected.
Louisiana is only behind Mississippi for the lowest vaccination rate in the United States.
