BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Gov. John Bel Edwards is reupping Louisiana’s indoor mask mandate for another month. The Democratic governor Tuesday credited the face covering requirement with keeping students safe from COVID-19 and helping to combat the state’s fourth surge of the coronavirus illness. Edwards reinstated the mask mandate in August as Louisiana faced its worst spike in coronavirus cases. Within weeks after the face covering requirement was reenacted, hospitalizations of people battling COVID-19 started to decline. The number of new infections and the percentage of COVID-19 tests returning positive also have dropped sizably over the last six weeks. The mask mandate covers all public indoor locations and includes K-12 schools and colleges.
