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The month of September saw significant declines in the average number of new COVID-19 cases and new deaths each day, according to statistics released by the Louisiana Department of Health.

According to the LDH, September’s daily new case average was 594.7 per day and the new deaths average was 17.8 per day. In August, these averages were 1,029.4 per day and 30.6 per day, respectively.

Recording of COVID-19 statistics began in March, and the following are the averages in these two categories for each month so far:

• New cases per day — March, 226.7 cases per day; April, 758.8 cases per day; May, 384.4 cases per day; June, 646.1 cases per day; July, 2,078 cases per day; August, 1,029.4 cases per day; September, 594.7 cases per day.
• New deaths per day — March, 10.4 deaths per day; April, 54.1 deaths per day; May, 26.5 deaths per day; June, 15.9 deaths per day; July, 23.3 deaths per day; August, 30.6 deaths per day; September, 17.8 deaths per day.

Hospitalizations and the number of COVID-19 patients on ventilators also plunged in September, according to the LDH statistics.

In August, the average daily hospitalizations was 1,192.4. In September, it fell to 685.6. In August, the average number of ventilators in use was 185.3, and in September it dropped to 105.3.

Testing dropped slightly, but not enough to fully account for the decrease in the statistics. In August, the state averaged 17,114.4 tests per day, and in September it averaged 14,813 tests per day.

Friday’s report from the LDH listed 889 new cases, 26 new deaths, 536 hospitalizations and 74 patients on ventilators. As of Friday, Washington Parish has seen 1,654 cases and 67 deaths.

The LDH releases new statistics every day at noon, except for Saturdays. They can be found online at ldh.la.gov/coronavirus.