Rosemary Westwood

Today’s mobile testing site opened at 8 a.m. at Dillard University, and it was booked up for tests five minutes later.

A strikingly high number of people who have the coronavirus and are infectious also have zero symptoms, according to a new Oschner Health study.

In a snapshot of the virus’s spread conducted in the metro New Orleans area in early May, 75 percent of people in the early stages of the virus — the period when they’re most infectious — were asymptomatic; 40 percent who had had the virus at some point never showed symptoms over the course of their infection.

The past week has been a tale of two pandemics.

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck a Louisiana anti-abortion law nearly identical to one deemed unconstitutional in Texas four years ago, in a landmark ruling for abortion rights. The law was expected to decimate abortion access in the state — shutting at least two of the state’s last three clinics, or perhaps all three.

The alarm among public health and government officials is rising in Louisiana and across the country this week, as coronavirus cases continue to grow and fears mount that efforts to tamp down the virus are now failing.

Louisiana’s health department recorded 1,356 new coronavirus cases Tuesday, its highest day of positive COVID-19 cases since April 7. The number is striking, but it adds to recent trends showing rising cases and hospitalizations in the state.

It’s been two weeks since Louisiana began Phase 2 of slowly reopening the state, and public health officials are seeing worrying trends.

It’s being hailed as the most significant advancement in civil rights for LGBTQ people since same-sex marriage was legalized, and it could have dramatic impacts in Louisiana.

Lara arrived at the Hope Medical Group for Women abortion clinic on Saturday, April 11, pregnant for the first time at 20 years old. She’d found out at 4 a.m. the Wednesday before, after peeing on a home pregnancy test and watching it instantly come up positive.

George Floyd’s killing by a white police officer in Minneapolis on Memorial Day has done more than spark a tidal wave of anti-racism and anti-police violence protests across the country and the world — protests that have yet to quell. It’s also prompted a national reckoning with racism in all its forms.

In Louisana, that’s meant calls to rename buildings and streets and investigate policing practices. We’ve got eyes on all of it, and we’ll keep track of the progress (or lack thereof) here.