Avoyelles Oct. 28 COVID update: six cases in 66 tests -- 9% positive rate

Avoyelles Parish's COVID rate appears to be inching higher, based on recent test results.

For the third day this week, the Louisiana Department of Health's daily COVID update has shown positive rates above the 5 percent deemed the Phase 3 measure of "success" against the virus. Wednesday's report included 66 test results with six new cases -- a 9 percent positive rate. This is on the heels of a 10 percent rate on Monday (one case out of 10 tests) and 10.6 percent on Tuesday (29 cases out of 274 tests). Combining this week's reports yields a 10.2 percent positive rate midway through the week.

Of perhaps more concern is the state's official weekly positivity report, issued on Wednesdays. Today's report showed Avoyelles scored its fifth consecutive week of below 5 percent positive for the virus. However, for the second week the percentage rose slightly. It was 4.2 percent for the period of Oct. 8-14 and 4.4 percent for Oct. 15-21.

Avoyelles Today's unofficial estimate of the parish's current positive rate, looking at the increase in cases and tests from Oct. 21 to Oct. 28, found 64 new cases out of 1,230 tests for an 8-day positive rate of 5.2 percent.

The good news amid the somewhat concerning indications is that there have been no additional COVID-related deaths in the parish since Oct. 11.

As of Wednesday, the parish's pandemic totals are 1743 cases, 62 deaths and 28,372 tests. The state's are 181,443 cases, 5,676 deaths and 2,734,022 tests.