The Governor’s office says recoveries are tough to track “because most people who are sick recover at home.”

NEW ORLEANS — We have gotten many comments asking why we don’t report the number of people who have recovered from COVID-19.

Each day, the state reports the number of total coronavirus cases, the number of those who died from the virus, and the number of those hospitalized. On Monday, April 13th the State Department of Health reported 21,016 total cases, 884 deaths, and 2134 patients hospitalized. It also breaks down all that data by parish, by gender, by ethnicity, etc.

The Governor’s office says recoveries are tough to track “because most people who are sick recover at home.” They say “a person is considered recovered when it has been at least seven days after the onset of illness, AND at least three days after resolution of fever (without the use of fever-reducing medications) AND resolution or improvement in respiratory symptoms.” The state says it’s working on a way to track recoveries, but there is no requirement for those people to notify the state they’re feeling better.

So, there is no definite number of recoveries, however, you can get a good idea by doing a little math taught to us in grade school. Using today’s numbers, 20,132 of the 21,016 coronavirus patients in Louisiana are still alive. 18,885 of them are NOT in hospitals. In Louisiana, roughly 96% of those sickened with coronavirus have recovered.

That’s good news, but the death rate of this illness is still higher in Louisiana than it is in the rest of the country. Still, we’ll take our good news where we can get it.

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