BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – The Ochsner Health System is providing an update on COVID-19 in their hospitals.

The hospital has seen a 73% increase in the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients over the last week.

The President and CEO, Ochsner Health, Warner Thomas, continues to say that this “has evolved into the pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

The hospital has done almost 21,000 COVID-19 tests this week with a 19.75% positivity rate.

There are currently seven pediatric COVID-19 patients.

As of Wednesday, there were around 520 employees in the Ochsner Health System who tested positive for COVID-19 and are out on quarantine.

Details including the most up-to-date COVID-19 numbers in the Ochsner Health system can be found below:

Image courtesy of Ochsner Health

An escalation of COVID-19 cases is expected to occur over the next few weeks, according to President Thomas.

These members of Ochsner Health took part in Thursday’s briefing:

  • Warner Thomas, President and CEO, Ochsner Health
  • Dr. Robert Hart, Chief Medical Officer, Ochsner Health
  • Dr. Katherine Baumgarten, Medical Director of Infection Control and Prevention, Ochsner Health
  • Dr. Sandra Kemmerly, System Medical Director of Hospital Quality, Ochsner Health

Ochsner Health answers the important question, do I still need a vaccine if I had COVID-19 already?