Avoyelles COVID update for Monday: 52 tests, five cases, no deaths

After a heavy few days of rising COVID numbers, Monday was another light update for Avoyelles Parish. As has been the case for several recent Mondays, today's report from the Louisiana Department of Health included results of only 52 tests -- 51 molecular and one antigen. There were only five new cases, all in the molecular test pooll There were no additional deaths since Sunday.

As of the Monday report, Avoyelles has had 3,005 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 since the first case was identified on March 21. Of those, 2,714 were confirmed with molecular tests in a lab while 291 were diagnosed with a rapid result antigen test, which the state considers less reliable and categorizes as "probable" for COVID. There have been 96 COVID-related deaths, with 91 "confirmed" and five "probable."

What is concerning to officials who monitor community test results is that although the number of cases is low, the percent of positive tests is still around 10 percent. Rates of 10 percent or higher are considered dangerously high. The goal is for parishes to reduce the positive rate to below 5 percent and, of course, to eventually defeat the pandemic altogether. Online experts have said a community is still in danger of an outbreak until the positive rate is consistently below 3 percent.

The state's pandemic totals as of the Monday report were 348,2134 cases (312,290/35,944) and 7,918 deaths (7,489/429). The Monday update reported 1,982 COVID patients in Louisiana hospitals with 232 of those on ventilators with life-threatening complications from the disease.