The state’s hospitals and clinics could reopen for routine care and non-COVID-19 related treatment as soon as May 1, if not sooner, according to Gov. John Bel Edwards, who has begun discussing the state’s plan for gradually getting back to work.
At a news conference earlier today, Edwards announced the creation of a business resilience task force that will help inform and guide his plan—a plan that, he acknowledges, is fluid and will evolve over time, as more information about the novel coronavirus and greater testing capacity become available.
Whatever that plan eventually looks like, Edwards says it’s increasingly clear the health care sector will be the first to come back online.
“It is my expectation that the first part of our economy that we stand back up will be the clinics and hospitals with respect to nonemergency medical procedures and surgeries because there is only so long you can put those things off until they become emergency conditions,” Edwards says. “We also know it is also a big part of the economy, so we’re going to be doing that first and quite frankly I would like to be able to do a lot of that before May 1.”
The state’s health care sector is the largest single employer by industry sector, accounting for 15.5% of total employment. In Baton Rouge, more than 47,000 workers are employed by hospitals and clinics, according to a 2018 report by the Louisiana Hospital Association.
As for other sectors of the economy, which have been effectively closed down since stay-at-home orders for nonessential businesses went into effect in mid-March, Edwards says it will take time to develop new protocols, procedures and the kinds of widespread testing needed to allow commerce to resume to anything that resembles normal.
But he acknowledges he cannot keep the economy shut down for months on end and will gradually allow businesses to reopen.
“All of this is going to take some time but we’re not going to wait until all of this is in place before we start reengaging certain sectors of our economy,” he says. “But until we have widespread testing, until we have therapeutic treatment and until we have a vaccine you’re going to see a transition over time, over months and potentially up to a year, year and a half, … where we’re just going to be living in a new normal.”
What that new normal might look like, Edwards offers a few hints. Going to the doctor’s office for a routine checkup might require donning a mask or other PPE. It might mean waiting in the car for your appointment instead of in a waiting room.
“There will be a whole lot of other things I can’t even envision right now,” he says.
Requiring businesses to implement social distancing measures as a condition of reopening falls within the governor’s executive authority and doesn’t require legislation, as long as a public health emergency order remains in effect, according to Edwards.
But he says his new Resilient Louisiana Commission, which will be co-chaired by Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Don Pierson and health care consultant Terrie Sterling, will help inform and guide his decisions.
“I’m not just relying on my authority, exercised without consideration and input from the people being regulated by it, which is why we’re having this task force,” he says. “We’re going to be talking to restaurants and bars and manufacturing facilities alike to get their advice on what they need and how we should proceed.”
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