Tuesday COVID report for Avoyelles: 64 cases, one death

Avoyelles Parish added 64 infections and another death to its COVID-19 pandemic totals in Tuesday's update from the state health department.

In somewhat of a role reversal, there were fewer lab tests with more positive results than there were in the rapid result tests. For the one-day report on 375 tests, the positive rate was 17 percent overall. There were 119 lab tests with 39 positives -- a 32.7 percent rate. There were 25 new cases diagnosed among 156 rapid result antigen tests, for a 16 percent positive rate. Usually there have been many more lab tests with a much lower positive rate than in the RRT pool.

This is a bad indicator for Avoyelles since the Louisiana Department of Health uses only the lab test results in determining a parish's official weekly positive rate. That rate is reported on Wednesdays.

The parish's 130th death had been diagnosed using a lab test, making the death toll 120 "confirmed" as COVID-related and 10 officially considered "probable" for the virus. The number of COVID cases in the parish since March 2020 was 5,216 -- 4,264 lab tests and 952 antigen tests.

Statewide on Tuesday there were 6,088 new cases and 93 deaths. There were 2,850 COVID victims hospitalized with 338 on ventilators. The state's pandemic totals had risen to 596,534 cases and 11,353 deaths.