Avoyelles has light day in state COVID update

After a weekend update with a shockingly high number of new cases, Monday's low-volume "snow day" report was welcome news for Avoyelles Parish. There were a total of 93 test results in Monday's report. There were 94 molecular tests and the state subtracted one rapid result test from the parish's totals. There were a net total of 13 new cases for the parish, but there were 15 new cases confirmed by molecular tests and two of the parish's previously recorded rapid result diagnoses were taken away. There were no additional deaths in Monday's report.

When test results are subtracted, it either means the state has identified a person with two positive results or the individual was misplaced in the parish's totals.

One bit of bad news among the one-day statistics would be a molecular test positive rate of almost 16 percent.

The parish's almost 11-month totals as of Monday are 3,835 cases (3,376/459) and 117 deaths (111/6). The state totals are 420,384 cases (363,469/56,928) and 9,325 deaths (8,691/634).

The online COVID Act Now site noted that Louisiana's risk level has been reduced to "at risk of outbreak," down from "active" outbreak. However, Avoyelles was still in the "active" description.

Act Now's analysis of recent COVID numbers shows Louisiana with 24.8 new cases per 100,000 population per day and an infection rate of 0.76. Avoyelles is averaging 36.5 new cases per 100,000 population with an infection rate of 0.8. An infection rate of 1.0 means each infected person is infecting another person. An infection rate of less than 1.0 means the virus is still spreading, but slowly.

The statewide positive rate was 5.4 percent in the Act Now analysis. Avoyelles' positive rate is 4.6 percent.

Avoyelles "new cases per 100,000" rate is higher than the state's, even with a lower positive test rate because each case in Avoyelles counts as 2.5 cases because the parish population is approximately 40,000.

Of the 64 parishes, Avoyelles ranks 28th in new cases per day rate, 10th in infection rate and 47th in positive test results in the Act Now report.