BATON ROUGE - Governor John Bel Edwards will hold a news conference Monday to discuss the state's ongoing coronavirus surge.

The governor is expected to address whether or not face masks or face coverings will be required in Louisiana.

At a news conference Friday, the governor said he was not mandating masks, though strongly encouraged people to wear them when gathering inside as the state deals with an out-of-control spike in new COVID cases.

The news conference will be seen on WBRZ Ch 2 and WBRZ Plus at 2:30 Monday. Stream WBRZ Plus online here. 

The governor spent the weekend reviewing COVID data and said the weekend data review would help him determine what decision is announced later Monday.

"We're going to review data that came from the CDC [Friday]," he said, before deciding whether the state will reimpose a mask mandate. 

Dr. Joseph Kanter with the Louisiana Department of Health said Friday that more than 11 percent of all emergency rooms visits involved people with COVID symptoms. More than 40 hospitals have now asked the state for help with staffing during the latest surge. 

.@JoeKanter again reiterates the state is seeing more patients show up to hospitals with signs/symptoms of COVID than at any point during the pandemic.

45 hospitals, as of this morning, have asked state for staffing help, he says.

— Johnston von Springer (@johnstonvon) July 30, 2021

Read about Louisiana's latest coronavirus data here.