BATON ROUGE – A young child is among more than 200 Louisians killed by coronavirus in the past two days, the state announced Wednesday.
Gov. John Bel Edwards said the boy was less than a year old and was among the 110 deaths reported in the state since Tuesday. Health officials said it is the first time in more than six months that a child has died of the virus in Louisiana.
In all, 11 children under the age of 18 have died of COVID-19 in Louisiana since the beginning of the pandemic.
“Every death of COVID-19 in Louisiana has been painful, but the loss of such a young child, who has not yet been vaccinated, is tragic and difficult to remember the difficult circumstance we live in all of Louisiana. Right now , we see the youngest hospitalized.They are getting sicker than in the previous climb and unfortunately some of them may die.This week we have already confirmed 6,146 cases of COVID in children and last week there were 63 pediatric cases “Even children who are not hospitalized or very ill are contagious,” Governor Edwards said in a statement.
Wednesday was the second day in a row that Louisiana reported more than 100 deaths in a single 24-hour period. On Tuesday the state broke the record for a single day of coronavirus deaths with 139 complaints.
The sudden rise in coronavirus-related deaths occurs as the state continues to face its fourth major wave of the virus.
Ochsner Health is also concerned with the increase in COVID-19 cases in children. On Thursday, hospital officials said there are 17 children under the age of 18 hospitalized throughout the system.
The average age, according to officials, is just over five years. These figures show an increase in the seven children hospitalized in Ochsner in July.
Louisiana reports 6,619 new cases of the virus since Tuesday, with a positivity rate of 13.59% in new tests. Hospitalizations fell slightly to 2,844, although that figure is still much higher than last year.