NEW ORLEANS - The head of the Ochsner Health System says hospitals are finally seeing a decline in coronavirus patients in Louisiana, meaning staff might soon be able to use more resources on surgeries and other procedures.

Ochsner CEO Warner Thomas told WWL-TV Friday that its New Orleans-area hospitals are still treating about 400 COVID-19 patients, but that's about half the number they were treating at the peak of the outbreak.

With numbers beginning to fall, Thomas believes the hospitals can soon start diverting resources back to other non-coronavirus-related procedures.

"I think that we anticipate over the next several days or a week or so, we'll start back into more normal operations, getting surgeries going and getting more colonoscopies and other types of procedures that, frankly, have been delayed over the past several weeks," Thomas said.  

Thomas estimated that Ochsner had treated about 7,000 patients, with roughly half of those requiring hospital stays.