Mid-week COVID update for Avoyelles: 85 new cases, no additional deaths

The number of tests reviewed for Avoyelles Parish's COVID update was considerably higher Wednesday than it was Tuesday. So, too, was the number of new cases added to the parish's pandemic total.

There were 722 test results in Wednesday's report from the Louisiana Department of Health. There were 85 new cases, for an overall positive rate of 11.77 percent. There was a 12.2 percent positive rate among the 541 lab tests and 10.5 percent of the 181 rapid result tests were positive.There were no additional COVID-related deaths in the mid-week report.

The pandemic totals for Avoyelles as of Wednesday were 5,689 cases and 136 deaths. Statewide there had been 638,443 cases and 11,793 deaths since the pandemic began in February-March of 2020.

The state also released the official 7-day positive rate for each parish on Wednesday. Avoyelles' rate rose from 8.8 percent for July 29-Aug. 4 to 9.6 percent for the period of Aug. 5-11.

A bright spot in the report was the increase in the percent of parish population who have been vaccinated. LDH reports 31.46 percent of Avoyelles Parish residents are fully vaccinated and 40 percent have had at least one dose of a vaccine. Avoyelles still trails five of its eight neighbors, but the improved numbers reflect more people are accepting local, state and federal health officials' entreaties to be vaccinated to protect themselves and others from the spread of COVID-19 and its variants.