Avoyelles total COVID cases reduced by three in Wednesday report

Avoyelles had good news from the state health department in the Wednesday COVID update.

The best news was that the parish is no longer flagged with a COVID positive rate of over 20 percent. The positive rate for the seven-day period of Feb. 18-24 was 4.9 percent -- down from 20.6 for the period of Feb. 11-17. The high positive rate was primarily due to an outbreak of the virus in the state prison in Cottonport.

The daily update was one of those unusual reports with only 35 test results and with the state subtracting three previous cases from the parish's pandemic total. There were no additional deaths.

Avoyelles pandemic totals as of Wednesday are 3,932 cases (3,456 "confirmed" and 476 "probable") and 118 deaths (111/7). The state totals, confirmed and probable, are 431,771 cases and 9,668 deaths.