Nobody want to believe it — or even hear it — but Gov. John Bel Edwards and some Louisiana researchers believe that New Orleans’ Mardi Gras celebration played a major roll in the spread of coronavirus in the state.
Louisiana has experienced the world’s largest rate of increase of COVID-19 during the first two weeks of the outbreak. The state has one of the highest per capita rates of the novel coronavirus.
On Thursday, the state reported a huge spike in cases, adding more than 500 new cases and 18 more deaths.
Acadia Parish added another confirmed case to the list, bringing the total to three.
“I will share a theory,” Edwards said Tuesday, acknowledging that he isn’t an epidemiologist. “The first case was confirmed 13 days after Fat Tuesday (Feb. 25) and happened in New Orleans. I happen to think a fair amount of (infection) was seeded (during Mardi Gras).”
As of Mardi Gras day on Feb. 25, the U.S. had not experienced its first reported case, though several countries had already seen widespread infection. New Orleans’ celebrations draw about 1.4 million attendees from around the world.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says symptoms — coughing, fever, and shortness of breath — may take between two to 14 days to appear.
And the governor isn’t alone in his theory. Experts from Tulane University and Louisiana State University have said the weeks-long celebration likely did help the virus spread in Louisiana.
Dr. Susanne Straif-Bourgeois, a professor of epidemiology at the LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, said Edwards’ statement was largely based on a model the flagship university provided to the governor’s office.
Straif-Bourgeois emphasized the model was based on the assumption that there were one or two infectious people at Mardi Gras. When the state started testing, “we really only saw the tip of the iceberg.”
“We only really tested, at that point, due to not having enough tests, the people who were sick enough to be hospitalized,” Straif-Bourgeois said.
On Thursday, Louisiana reported 2,305 cases, with 827 in Orleans Parish and another 357 in neighboring Jefferson Parish. Louisiana reported 83 deaths, with 37 coming out of Orleans Parish and 7 out of Jefferson Parish, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
In Thursday’s update, numbers in the Acadiana area rose again.
Acadia now has three cases; Calcasieu has 15 cases and one death; Evangeline and St. Martin each have two cases; Iberia has three cases; Jeff Davis and Vermilion each have one case; Lafayette has 30 cases; and St. Landry and St. Mary each have five cases.
Fifty-three of the state’s 64 parishes are reporting cases of COVID-19.
Dr. Richard Oberhelman, professor and chair of the Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Science at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Science, agrees that Mardi Gras could have been the tinder that sparked the spread of the virus in the state.
“The first cases happened within the week after Mardi Gras. This event brings people from all over the world,” Oberhelman said. “Some of those may have been either international travelers who were carrying coronavirus or they could have been people coming in from other parts of the U.S.”
Mardi Gras’ dense crowds go against the idea of “social distancing” — increasing physical space between people — which federal and local governments began pushing after the virus spread to the U.S.
“During Mardi Gras there is a lot of close personal contact,” Oberhelman said.
Former Louisiana Secretary of Health Rebekah Gee, who was recently hired as the head of the LSU Health Care Services Division, said in an MSNBC interview that Mardi Gras provided the “perfect storm” for spreading the virus.
Gee said that it’s clear the virus was spread from New Orleans after Mardi Gras.
“We have documentation that the virus was here at that time,” Gee said. “Unfortunately, people were throwing beads, sharing drinks, and they weren’t only throwing beads, but likely throwing COVID-19.”