In perhaps the first ray of hope that social distancing measures could be making a difference in the New Orleans area, data released by the state over the past two days suggests that the growth rate of known coronavirus cases in the city and in Jefferson Parish has begun to wane.

During the last two days, the number of known new cases in the two parishes rose by 276, less than half of the jump of 587 cases seen in the two days prior to that.

The slower growth rate in the New Orleans area came as the COVID-19 numbers for the rest of Louisiana continued to accelerate, with the virus now detected in all but five of 64 parishes and the number of new cases detected daily in the rest of the state now easily outpacing the increases in the city and Jefferson Parish.

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Experts cautioned that it’s still too early, and the data is too volatile, to say for sure if the numbers coming out of New Orleans and its biggest suburb mark the beginning of a long-term trend. In other cities hit by coronavirus, and in earlier epidemics, early signs of a slowdown have sometimes shown equally quick reversals.

But they also saw hope in news that the demand for testing in the city seems to have slowed -- evidence that the slower rise in known cases is not simply a reflection of a lack of testing capacity.

The city on Monday opted to close one of its two drive-thru testing sites and consolidate operations at the other one because of reduced demand -- though the single site will still be able to process the same volume of tests, 500 per day.

“Any reduction even in the rate of increase is an achievement because it flattens the curve,” said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard University and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. “It bears watching.”

Susan Hassig, an epidemiologist at Tulane who studies infectious diseases and public health, called the new numbers “encouraging, but not a reason to have a second line. If the trend continues, it will suggest we have had some success in flattening the curve.”

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Hassig and Lipsitch both peppered their observations with cautions. Hassig noted that the drive-thru sites only capture people who drive, and she wondered if the slowdown in growth could be because the “peak of explosive transmission” occurred around Mardi Gras.

“I’d be very cautious about overinterpreting this kind of information,” Hassig said. “I think you need to be 14-21 days past [the implementation of] social distancing to have any confidence that what we’re seeing is a consequence of that.”

The first social-distancing measures were announced a little over two weeks ago.

Lipsitch said that, “the more kinds of data that back this up, and the longer you see them, the more confident you can be.”

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He noted that in Wuhan, China, for instance, following a crackdown in January, there were five consecutive days that saw fewer new cases. That was followed by an explosion of new cases that still isn’t fully understood, he said.

There were similarly confusing fluctuations during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, Lipsitch said.

Both Lipsitch and Hassig noted that, even if the curve has begun flattening locally, that still means more people are becoming infected with the deadly virus. But the reason flattening the curve is seen as so important is because when growth in the virus is uncontained, the potential for overwhelming hospitals also grows.

Under current models used by the state, hospitals in the New Orleans area will likely run out of ventilators by April 5, Gov. John Bel Edwards said Monday. Edwards said that the recent slowing of the growth rate had “bought us a couple or three days as it relates to ventilator capacity.”

Bed capacity is expected to run out on April 12, Edwards said.

If there was reason for some hope in and around the city, the virus nevertheless showed no sign of slowing its spread across Louisiana.

As of Monday, 58% of the state’s known cases were in Orleans or Jefferson parishes, but that number was a dramatic decline from a week earlier, when the two parishes accounted for two-thirds of cases.

Other parishes were growing faster in raw numbers as well. Sunday and Monday marked the first two days since the outbreak that more new cases were identified outside Orleans and Jefferson parishes than within them. The 1,707 cases elsewhere in the state was roughly five times the number counted a week ago.

Orleans and Jefferson still account for about two-thirds of the 185 deaths the coronavirus has inflicted on Louisiana, but deaths lag known cases by a couple of weeks as an indicator of the disease’s spread.

Edwards said it’s important to expand the availability of testing to parts of Louisiana that haven’t had much access to it.

“Even if you don't have a case in your neighborhood, there probably is COVID across the state,” Edwards said. “So we are looking now at all those areas where we're not seeing a high volume of testing and trying to look at nontraditional partners or existing partners that we could be working with to get testing into those communities. It's going to be easiest if we're asking people not to travel large distances.”

The governor in recent days has highlighted an alarming rise of cases in northwest Louisiana, especially Caddo Parish. The parish now has 222 confirmed cases, third-most among Louisiana parishes.