Avoyelles Friday COVID udpate: 13 cases, no deaths

Avoyelles Parish's COVID update for Friday remained fairly consistent with its recent reports from the state health department.

There were 13 new cases out of 573 test results in the Friday report. There were no additional deaths since Thursday. The report reflects a one-day positive rate of 2.2 percent, which is better than the parish's last official weekly rate of 4.9 percent. At this time of the pandemic, any positive rate less than 5 percent is "good." National pandemic experts indicate that anything over 3 percent means a community is still at risk of a sudden surge of new cases.

Recent reports give Avoyelles reason to be cautiously optimistic that if we haven't turned the corner, we can see it from here. At the same time, state and national health officials have expressed concern that this Sunday's Super Bowl -- combined with an as-yet-unknown presence of the "Brit Bug" COVID variant -- could see a major increase in cases and hospitalizations within the next two weeks.

As of Friday, Avoyelles' pandemic totals are 3,524 cases (3104 by molecular tests, 420 by antigen tests) and 115 deaths (109/6). The state's totals are 409,861 cases (355,522/54,339) and 9,076 deaths (8482/594).