COVID numbers improve for Avoyelles

The daily COVID update from the Louisiana Department of Health is like an annoying drip into a tin can. It isn't an imminent threat to the house, but the drops just keep falling.

Thursday's update for Avoyelles showed 169 tests with four new COVID cases. Of those, 133 lab tests had only one positive result, but 36 rapid result tests yielded three positives. On Wednesday, there were 144 tests with two new cases. Both of those positive results were in the 94 lab tests. There were no positives among the 50 rapid result tests.

These two reports are typical of the parish's updates over the past two months -- usually less than 200 tests with less than eight positive results.

On Wednesday the parish dropped back into the "moderate" risk parishes and posted an official weekly positive rate of only 1.8 percent for the week of May 27 to June 2. That is a vast improvement over the 6.6 percent for the seven days of May 20 to May 26.

As of Thursday, Avoyelles' pandemic totals were 4,327 cases (3,752 / 575) and 123 deaths (115 / 8). The state's totals were 475,126 cases and 10,638 deaths.