Avoyelles has another double-digit increase in Thursday's COVID report

Most "toe of the boot" parishes in Louisiana are colored red for "highest risk" on the state's current COVID map. Avoyelles and all but one of its surrounding parishes is rated "high risk" and colored a deep cantaloupe orange. LaSalle Parish is the neighborhoods only "highest risk" parish.

The map reflects what some fear is the beginning of a full-blown surge that has been predicted by pandemic prophets for the past month.

Avoyelles had to bear another double-digit increase in Thursday report, with 15 new cases in a batch of 197 test results. Unconfirmed reports point the finger of blame at the dramatically under-vaccinated east Avoyelles area, where about 13.4 percent of residents are fully vaccinated. That compares to a parishwide total of 28.69 percent. As noted, that is based on comments from readers in that area and has not been confirmed by official sources, who pointed out the state does not release information on the location of cases within a parish.

Looking back to last Friday's report through Thursday's update, Avoyelles had 1,507 COVID tests with 76 positive results. That covers seven days, making an average of over 10 new cases per day. In COVID statistical reports, that would be counted as 25 new cases per day per 100,000 population because the parish has about 40,000 residents.

The positive rate for those combined reports would be just over 5 percent. That is significantly better than the over-10 percent rate with 50 or more new cases the parish was having earlier in the pandemic, but also much higher than the one or fewer cases per day with less than 1 percent positive rates Avoyelles had been enjoying.

As of Thursday, the 16-month totals for Avoyelles Parish were 4,451 cases and 125 deaths. Statewide there have been 494,340 infections and 10,821 deaths related to the virus since March 2020.