Avoyelles has only three new cases out of 193 tests

Avoyelles received a welcome break from its recent run of bad news in its fight with COVID-19 with only three new cases out of 193 tests in the Friday update from the state health department.

Anytime the parish can have almost 200 tests with less than five cases is a good day at this point in the pandemic. The parish had several days of double-digit increases this past week.

As of Friday, Avoyelles has had 4,454 COVID cases and 125 COVID-related deaths since the pandemic began in March 2020. The state's numbers were 495,945 cases and 10,8228 deaths.

The state is still seeing surges of cases and hospitalizations due to a combination of the ultra-contagious Delta variant of the disease and low vaccination rates to protect against infection and/or serious complications from the virus. The number of hospitalizations hit 563 in the Friday report, the most since this past March and more than double what it was when the state celebrated its record low hospitalizations of 269 on May 25 with a removal of all businesses' capacity limitations.

The next report from the state will be Monday, which will include reviewing test results from Saturday, Sunday and Monday.