Published: March 14, 2022
By: Piper Hutchinson, LSU Manship School News Service
BATON ROUGE — Just over two years after the first COVID death in Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Monday that the public health emergency will expire on Wednesday, crediting the availability of vaccines, antivirals and quality masks.
“Just because the proclamation is expiring doesn’t mean COVID is over,’’ he said. “If the circumstances call for it, I will not hesitate to declare another emergency.”
“But, God willing, we will never have to see such difficult mitigation measures in our state again,” he added.
In his annual state-of-the-state address to the Legislature, Edwards said Louisiana also is in a better fiscal situation, and he laid out his proposals to spend several billions of dollars of federal aid money and surplus state tax revenues.
“At my first state of the state, I had just inherited a billion-dollar budget deficit to close out that fiscal year and a $2 billion deficit for the year that started July 1, 2016,” Edwards said. “Today, as I stand here before you, we have hundreds of millions in surplus, even more in current year excess, and billions in federal funding.”
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LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 