Avoyelles experiencing predicted Christmas COVID crisis

It has been two weeks since Christmas Eve. There were those who predicted a spike in cases within 10-14 days of the holidays. Others pooh-poohed such talk as media-driven panic.

In the past three days, counting today's update from the state health department, Avoyelles Parish has had 209 new diagnoses of COVID-19. Of those, 165 were by molecular tests and 44 were from rapid result antigen tests. The parish's COVID-related death toll has increased by four, three "confirmed" and one "probable" in what appears to a Christmas COVID crisis.

Thursday's update reported 73 new cases since Wednesday (59/14) with two additional deaths (one confirmed, one probable).

Tuesday was Avoyelles' worst day of the 10-month pandemic with 88 total cases -- 72 "confirmed" -- out of 889 tests (804 molecular/85 antigen). There were no additional deaths in that report. Hope that it was just a "catch up" spike caused by a holiday backlog faded Wednesday when there were 48 diagnosed cases out of just 198 tests (34 out of 123 molecular and 14 out of 75 antigen).

Thursday's numbers reflect a one-day positive rate of 9.9 percent -- 9.16 percent in the molecular tests and 17.5 percent among the antigen tests.

The parish's pandemic totals as of Thursday are 2,930 cases (2,662 / 268) and 94 deaths (89 / 5).

The state's totals as of Thursday 338,054 (303,889/34,165) cases and 7,728 (7,319/409) deaths. There were 2,033 Louisianians hospitalized with COVID with 219 on ventilators with life-threatening complications.