Coronavirus USA: Another State Passes 1,000 Deaths As Cases Climb

After becoming one of the hotspots for the coronavirus in the U.S., Louisiana on Tuesday became that fourth state to surpass 1,000 deaths.

Louisiana, which reported its first coronavirus case on March 9, joins other states with over 1,000 deaths: New York, New Jersey and Michigan. The states of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey have accounted for roughly half of all domestic cases since March 20.

Lousiana officials reported 129 new deaths Tuesday, the highest one-day number for the lone southern state.

“They are our neighbors, friends and coworkers,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a statement to the press. “They are more than just a number on a report or graph, and as our fellow Louisianans, we all grieve alongside their families.”

Johns Hopkins University reports that Louisiana has seen nearly 22,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, over one-fourth of which are from New Orleans, and 1,103 deaths as of Wednesday afternoon.

While fourth in deaths, it is only ninth in overall cases. Lousiana's death toll is trailed by Massachusetts, with 957 deaths out of over 28,000 cases.

Edwards noted that despite the news, other signs point to the state’s fight with coronavirus reaching a plateau.

Recently, numbers of hospitalizations, patients in need of ventilators and daily new cases have begun to drop. Death rate tends to indicate how severe the spread of the virus was roughly two weeks prior, as that is typically how long it takes to kill those who test positive.

The U.S. has the most coronavirus cases at 609,696 and the highest death toll at 26,059.

The U.S. continues to see a sharp rise in cases and deaths. On April 8, there were roughly 400,000 confirmed cases and 14,500 reported deaths.