Shreveport Mayor: How to Protect the City from the Surging Delta Variant

Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins talks about the options he's considering to help fight the surge in COVID Delta variant cases around the state and locally.

"Everything is on the table right now to prevent us from going backwards," says the Mayor, referring to what he - or other city leaders - can do to slow the spread. "But the way we know that we can protect ourselves...to look around and know that the areas with the highest vaccination rates have the lowest hospitalizations, if everybody does the right thing and gets vaccinated or wearing a mask while we're out, but right now it doesn't look like that's what's happening, so lawmakers have to consider measures to keep our community safe.

And Perkins emphasizes the importance of being vaccinated. "We're under 30%," he says, talking about the cities numbers, "We're below the state average. The state average is 35%...so we are way, way below where we need to be for our community to be protected.

Perkins gave details Thursday morning on KEEL:

"If we don't want our lives to be affected, if we don't want our businesses to be impacted, if we don't want our loved ones to get sick, that is the only way, right now, that we can protect ourselves."

And is Perkins, who points out that any mask mandate for the city would have to pass the City Council, at least putting the weight of his office behind that kind of move?  "Anything that is legally permissible for me to do to protect our community I would consider right now. We've seen this virus explode across our community and we need to consider every possibility to keep this community safe."