Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The number of COVID-19 patients in state hospitals and the number of patients on ventilators both dropped Friday, according to statistics released by the Louisiana Department of Health.

The LDH said at noon Friday that the state had 867 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, and 104 of those patients required ventilators. On Thursday, the state reported 884 hospitalizations and 107 ventilators in use.

The state said Friday that there had been 36,925 cases of COVID-19 reported, with 2,545 deaths. On Thursday, there had been 36,504 cases and 2,506 deaths reported.

The increase between Thursday’s statewide update and Friday’s update was an additional 421 cases and an additional 39 deaths.

Washington Parish had reported 389 cases and 37 deaths, according to the Friday update. On Thursday, the parish had reported 383 cases and 36 deaths.

There had been 1,609 cases in St. Tammany Parish, with 155 deaths (an additional 10 cases and additional one death compared to Thursday), and 782 cases in Tangipahoa Parish, with 32 deaths (an additional 15 cases and additional one death compared to Thursday).

Washington Parish had reported 3,185 COVID-19 tests, as of Friday’s update — an increase of 217 tests compared to Thursday’s report.

In Friday’s update, the LDH said that 14,438 tests had been reported from the state laboratory, and an additional 297,370 tests had been reported from commercial laboratories — a total of 311,808 tests. The state had reported a total of 305,381 tests in Thursday’s update — a difference of 6,427 tests.

The LDH reported Friday that there are 26,249 presumed recovered cases of COVID-19, as of its May 16 update.

A person is presumed to have recovered if:

• It has been more than 14 days, since he/she tested positive and he/she is not currently in the hospital or deceased (when hospital status is known), or
• It has been more than 21 days, since he/she tested positive and he/she is not deceased (when hospital status is unknown).

The previous report was released on May 10, with 22,608 presumed recovered cases — a difference of 3,641 additional recoveries.

The LDH typically releases updated statistics each day at approximately noon. For complete statistics, visit the LDH online at ldh.la.gov/coronavirus.