BATON ROUGE, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – The latest Louisiana Department of Health numbers as of Sunday at 12 p.m. show 348 new cases statewide, bringing the total to 23,928 and 29 new deaths. That brings the number of statewide deaths to 1,296.

Gov. John Bel Edwards warned that while the number of cases and deaths are lower than they’ve been the last couple of days, they are typically lower on Sundays and the coming days will reveal whether the state is indeed on a path that will allow the first phases of reopening of the economy.

“What we’d like to see is a continued downward trajectory tomorrow and Tuesday and on through the week.”

Edwards offered the update while standing in front of a wall covered in hearts representing people who have been treated and released from Baton Rouge General Hospital Mid-City late Sunday morning.

“There will be many many more hearts on this wall before all of this is over, and I believe that they will be.”

Edwards pointed out that the most important numbers to watch are hospitalizations and people on ventilators, which he said have been on a slight decrease. In fact, LDH data shows those hospitalizations have been declining since peaking on April 13 at 2,134. As of Sunday, there were 1,761 in the hospital with COVID-19. The number of patients on ventilators has been declining since peaking on April 4 at 571. On Sunday, there were 349 COVID-19 patients on ventilators.

“It still appears that we’re trending in a good direction, and that’s a good thing because if you’d been paying attention a month ago when we were reporting the fastest case growth anywhere in the world, with the Johns Hopkins data, we are in a much, much better place today than we thought we were going to be. And it’s because the citizens of Louisiana taking the stay at home order seriously.”

Edwards provided the update at the beginning of a news conference, where he was joined by Mayor Sharon Weston Broome and U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson, Commanding General U.S. Army North (Fifth Army) at Mid-City to highlight the U.S. military’s support to Louisiana in its response to COVID-19.