BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — It’ll be at least another month before Louisiana leaders consider relaxing the statewide mask mandate.
On Tuesday, Governor John Bel Edwards signed an executive order extending the current mitigation measures for another 28 days.
“That is, the statewide indoor mask mandate including K-12 schools and college campuses,” said Edwards.
As of now, the focus is on ensuring children’s safety.
“Our transmission is being driven by people from five to 18 years of age, all of those people happen to be in our K-12 school systems. Children, those under 12, at least cannot yet be vaccinated and masks obviously help protect them in addition to themselves, it protect others,” said Edwards.
State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter said severe pregnancy outcomes are becoming an issue.
“Six maternal deaths, six pregnant moms have died in this surge and 10 fetal deaths, 10 unborn children have died,” said Kanter.
He said those numbers are shocking and the state is heading in the right direction, but “we’re nowhere close to being out of the woods yet, there still is a ton of Covid out there in Louisiana, meaning that you and your family still needs to be safe,” said Kanter.
For now, you will still have to mask up in schools, bars and gyms, a move the governor is hoping has a critical impact.
“I think it just bears repeating that every community in the state of Louisiana continues to have a high amount of Covid. I think this is incredibly important,” said Edwards.