Avoyelles has 21 new cases on Wednesday; weekly positive rate triples to 4.9 percent

It was another worrisome day in the COVID war for Avoyelles Parish, with 21 new cases added to parish's pandemic total. The one-day total put Avoyelles' COVID count over 4,500 to 4,507.

The double-digit jump came out of a heavier-than-normal test pool of 486. What little good news to be found was that there were only five new cases in the 399 lab tests -- which are used to determine a parish's official weekly positive rate. The bad news was that there were more rapid test results than usual -- 87 -- with 16 positives.

The state released the weekly positive rate, which showed Avoyelles rate at 4.9 percent for the period of July 8-14. That is more than triple the previous week's rate of 1.5.

As of Wednesday, the parish's 16-month totals were 4,507 infections diagnosed and 126 COVID-related deaths. The state's totals were 506,882 cases and 10,874 deaths.