*City officials in New Orleans are trying to curb the rise in rodents on public streets as restaurants take a hit amid the coronavirus shutdown.
As reported by wwltv.com, rats that typically dwell inside restaurants and bars, eating discarded food are now congregating on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, which many locals find quite alarming.
Tour guide Charles Marsala has shot several videos of the roaming rats, which went viral on social media.
“It’s driving our rodents crazy,” Mayor LaToya Cantrell said, referring to the closure of eateries during this health crisis.
“Unfortunately, with these businesses being shut down, these rats are hungry,” said Claudia Riegel, executive director of the New Orleans Mosquito, Termite and Rodent Control Board.
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The city is now ramping up rat bait in commercial areas in an effort to curb the growing problem, starting on Bourbon Street and spreading out to the Central Business District and down Magazine Street, the report states.
“It’s (normally) maybe about once a quarter,” Riegel said of the rat traps and bait. “So now our plan is to come through on a weekly basis.”
She also noted that rats often carry disease.
“There are pathogens in these rodents,” Riegel said. “Fortunately, we … don’t have many disease cases that are related to rodents. But the potential is there.”
She is also urging residents to do their part to keep rats out of neighborhoods by putting garbage bags straight inside the trash can instead of on the curb as many tend to do.
Scroll up and watch the video report.
In related news, President Trump on Monday that he will soon issue new guidelines on how to reopen and boost businesses and the economy.
“Our country wasn’t built to be shut down. This is not a country that was built for this. It was not built to be shut down,” Trump said in a briefing. “We’re not going to let the cure be worse than the problem.”
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