Friday COVID update raises question on value of rapid result tests

From Saturday through Thursday Avoyelles had gained 11 new cases of COVID, as reported by the state health department's updates. On Friday the parish had seven new cases among its 223 test results for that report.

As we have noted in past reports, the COVID numbers are rarely simple to understand. In this case, pessimists will see the beginning of a spike based on the overall numbers. Optimists will see that six of those seven new cases were in the 77 rapid result tests and there was only one in the 146 lab tests, and reason that some of that number are false positives.

Of the 18 new cases included in this week's COVID updates, seven were identified in 751 lab tests and 11 were in 171 rapid result tests. Rapid result tests are not considered to be as accurate as lab tests, but are a strong weapon against the spread of COVID because it allows a person to know in less than an hour if they have antigens associated with COVID. This allows them to isolate sooner and avoid possibly infecting others. Because the antigen test is not as accurate as the lab test, the health department uses only the lab test results in determining the parish's official weekly positive rate.

The debate over the value of rapid results tests is like watching a ping-pong match, with a lot of back and forth arguments. Looking at this week's total results, the overall positive rate would be 1.95 percent, the lab test positive rate would be 0.93 percent and the rapid result test positive rate would be 6.4 percent. These numbers, like any weekly report, don't mean a lot taken alone. Their value is in whether they show a pattern or trend.

The Friday uptick could be a "luck of the draw" situation and the parish's next updates could return to the one and two new cases we have come to expect and accept as "the new normal" in the war on COVID. If the daily reports continue to show higher numbers of new cases and positive rates, then we may be receiving familiar news -- as some have predicted -- of another surge on the horizon. At this time, the numbers are still good and the virus is receding but not eliminated.

Avoyelles Parish's pandemic totals as of Friday were 7,414 infections with 181 deaths. That state's totals as of Friday were 775,935 cases and 14,877 deaths since March 2020.