With a population of 53,100 residents and only 4,782 reported cases, only 9% of  St. Charles Parish residents have contracted the virus, some pretty good numbers compared to the rest of the nation. Parish President, Matthew Jewell, and his administration have put many plans in place to keep residents safe. 

When asked about how the parish is dealing with the virus Jewell said, “I think we’ve been managing it pretty well, a lot of it is from the guidance that comes from the state. So, overall I’d say we’re doing the best we can in the face of this unprecedented pandemic.”

Businesses around the country have been forced to shut down with low revenue because of the virus and things were on a similar trend until Jewel and his administration devised a plan to help. Jewell’s administration created a campaign called, “Let’s take care of Business.” (Let’s Take Care of Business)

Jewell said, “the goal of the campaign is to encourage our residents to shop local, to patronize local businesses, and to help keep that money in our parish and help support our local residents, and that allows us to continue our mission to provide high-quality services to our residents.”

Dealing with a global pandemic is an issue that even the highest of government officials have struggled with, and with Jewell only being in office for a little over a year, it was not something he was expecting. “When I started in January of 2020, I had a lot of big ambitions and things that I wanted to get done in my first 100 days. One thing that I can tell you was not in my 100-day plan was a global pandemic. This is something that has been with us since pretty much the beginning of our administration, but we’ve had to make several adjustments along the way so we can continue to operate and provide services to our residents.”

To keep up with the latest Covid-19 data, go to https://ldh.la.gov/Coronavirus.