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BY DR. CHRISTY A. MONTEGUT

ST. JOHN PARISH CORONER

 

The month of May saw a mild uptick in COVID-19 cases in St. John Parish, with a total of 164 new cases compared to 30 in April and 33 in March. We had no deaths from COVID in May, and have not registered a COVID-related death in the parish since mid-March.

A COVID surge was anticipated in May but it has turned out to be much milder than anticipated, with much lower numbers of hospitalized patients. This is welcome news after the tremendous surge of the Omicron variant at the beginning of the year which caused a huge strain on hospitals and our health care system.

This current surge seems to be leveling off as the new case count has been stable for the past two weeks. The severity of illness has been much milder than previous outbreaks and with no deaths since mid­March, this could be a sign that the virus is becoming less virulent as it continues to mutate in nature. We can only hope that this trend continues and with our continued emphasis on immunization, we can finally prevent this virus from wreaking havoc and causing death in our society.