'Catch up' COVID report on Tuesday is bad news for Avoyelles

As usually happens on a report shortly after a "no show" update with only a handful of test results, the "catch up" COVID update for Avoyelles Parish on Tuesday was a wake-up reminder that the virus is still out there.

The bad news is that not only did the parish have a double-digit increase of 29 new cases -- expected after a report like Monday's -- it happened in only 274 tests. That gives the parish a one-report positive rate of over 10.5 percent. For those watching positivity rates, Tuesday's 29 out of 274 is more concerning than Monday's 1 out of 10 test results. The two-day total still puts the parish's positive rate over 10.5 percent.

If the positive rates drop back to the 3-4 percent the parish had been seeing in the past few weeks, the weekly rates will most likely fall below 5 percent again and allow the parish to continue its under-5 percent weekly streak.