Avoyelles Wednesday COVID update: 48 cases, 2 deaths since Tuesday

Avoyelles had considerably fewer test results in its Wednesday COVID update from the state health department, but had a high positive rate among those results. In addition to 48 new cases, the parish also had two additional deaths reported in the Wednesday update.

The one-day report considered results from 198 tests -- 123 molecular tests and 75 antigen tests. Of the 48 new cases diagnosed, 34 were in the molecular tests and 14 were in antigen tests.

Antigen tests usually have higher positive rates, but in Wednesday's snapshot look at COVID in the community that group had "only" 18.6 percent positives. The tried-and-true molecular tests had a positive rate of 27.6.

The Wednesday report also released the seven-day positivity rate for the parish for the period of Dec. 24-30. That rate is based only on molecular test results due to the possibility of "false positives" with an antigen test.

The positivity rate rose from 7.2 percent in the pre-Christmas report to 10.0 for the last week of the year.

As of Wednesday, Avoyelles' pandemic totals were 2,857 cases (2,603 molecular/254 antigen) and 92 deaths (88/4). The state had 333,524 total cases (299,967/33,557) and 7,681 deaths (7,273/408).