thank you Michael and as we cover your health this afternoon the Labor Day holiday weekend comes as we're seeing a rise in new covid cases right here in Acadiana yeah news 15's medical editor Dr John lepri is showing us what's behind the covid comeback and how you can stay healthy as summer winds down we're just entering covid season and August has seen an uptick in cases but first let's review the year to date know that it's never really gone away we continue to have es throughout the year the majority of these tend to be mild and treatment is the same as any mild upper respiratory illness things get better on their own this year we even revised the return to work recommendations so people can return to work sooner now that takes us to testing this really isn't necessary for mild cases so most of this goes untested and we underestimate activity currently to get reliable data we test Wastewater samples this allow ows us to test a very large area quickly and we track hospitalizations due to covid this is linked to hospital billing data so it's easy to collect so how are things looking let's first look at Wastewater samples as you can see our area is seeing a high amount of covid activity with over 80% of the samples testing positive now let's look at hospitalizations for more serious illness currently we see the spike from earlier this month but things are trending down now let's compare this to the previous year overall hospitalizations are down and August appears to be back to Baseline levels finally a reminder that typically November marks the beginning of covid season and activity should be picking up soon so stay with us for the latest on covid and wishing you better health Dr John lepri News 15