BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — One of Louisiana’s largest hospitals has temporarily stopped taking inpatients for nonemergency surgeries because of a steadily increasing influx of COVID-19 patients. Baton Rouge-based Our Lady of the Lake said it will pause scheduling new nonurgent surgeries that require an inpatient bed for at least three weeks after admitting 25 new COVID-19 patients within the last 24 hours. Louisiana has one of the lowest coronavirus vaccination rates in the nation. That is worsening the ongoing surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the highly contagious delta variant. Statewide, the health department said Monday the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 reached 1,221. That’s more than double the number 10 days ago.
