Avoyelles' weekend COVID report indicates progress against virus

The two-day weekend update for COVID statistics brought Avoyelles Parish the sad news of two more virus-related deaths -- bringing the total for the pandemic to 61. There were 11 new cases, but that was out of a pool of 687 tests reported since Friday's update. That gave the parish -- which was told Friday that it was being given credit for two consecutive weeks with under a 5 percent positive rate for COVID -- a weekend snapshot positivity rate of 1.6 percent.

Since March 21, the parish has had 1,628 COVID cases, 61 COVID-related deaths and has tested 25,785 individuals, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.

The state's pandemic totals as of Sunday were 172,059 cases, 5,462 deaths and 2,486,340 tests.