Louisiana broke its own record for Covid-19-related hospitalizations over several days last week, with 2,421 people hospitalized with the virus on Friday. On the same day, it reported 6,116 new cases, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control.
The annual jazz festival will not take place “due to the current exponential growth of new Covid cases in New Orleans and the region and the ongoing public health emergency,” the festival said in a report. press release published on its website.
The festival, which normally takes place over two weekends in late April and early May, had been moved to October earlier this year.
Previously announced acts for this year’s Jazz Fest included the Rolling Stones, who were due to play the 2019 festival and had to cancel due to Mick Jagger’s illness. Other acts that were booked for Jazz Fest 2021 included Foo Fighters, Lizzo, and Dead and Company.
“We are now looking forward to next spring, when we will present the festival during its traditional period. The dates for next year are April 29 to May 8, 2022,” the festival posted on its website.
“In the meantime, we urge everyone to follow the guidelines and protocols proposed by public health officials, so that we can all soon experience the joy that is Jazz Fest together,” he said.
The Jazz Fest in 2020 has also been canceled due to the pandemic.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell reintroduced a mask mandate for the city on July 30, saying, “Thanks to the Delta variant, the Covid pandemic is once again raging out of control. The mayor is also demanding that all city employees get vaccinated.
Only 37.4% of Louisiana’s population is fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
On August 2, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards reinstated a mask mandate for the state that went into effect Wednesday and lasts until at least September 1.
“The cheapest thing we can do to try to curb transmission and give our hospitals some breathing space is to reinstate the mask’s mandate,” he said.
Edwards said the capacity of his state hospitals was “absolutely strained.”
