Tuesday COVID update: 5 positive rapid tests out of 51 results; no new cases out of 153 lab tests

Tuesday was one of those days for Avoyelles when the state adjusts the parish's previous numbers due to newly discovered errors. It is a one-day hiccup and not a reliable indicator that things are looking up in the war on COVID.

The Tuesday update from the state health department reviewed 204 COVID tests in Avoyelles Parish. As usual, most of those -- 153 -- were lab tests that the state uses to determine the parish's official weekly positive rate. That positive rate determines whether the parish is considered high risk, medium risk or low risk for the virus. The parish actually lost a COVID case among its lab test results, due to the aforementioned adjustment. Cases can be subtracted from a parish's total for reasons such as a duplicate positive for the same person or someone that was thought to be from Avoyelles is actually from another parish.

There were 51 rapid result tests with five new COVID cases. That reflects a one-day positive rate of almost 10 percent. Rapid result tests are not included in computing the parish's official positive rate. However, they are deemed to be an important weapon against COVID because they identify a "probable" infection in a matter of hours instead of days. This allows the infected person to immediately isolate and avoid spreading the disease. The downside to rapid result tests is that they have a small possibility of false positive results, which is why they are not used in the official positive rate.

As of Tuesday, Avoylles' pandemic totals were 4,321 cases (3,749 lab tests/572 rapid result tests) and 123 deaths (115/8). The state totals on Tuesday -- lab and rapid result -- were 473,879 cases and 10,622 deaths from the virus since March 2020.