Louisiana COVID-19: Acadiana's new cases steadily decrease as hospitalizations also fall

New cases of coronavirus in Acadiana continued a slight slowing trend Friday as parishes in the region reported 186 infections and six more deaths.

The region appears to be on the back half of a mid-July peak in new cases of the virus after averaging 254 infections a day since Sunday and 269 a day last week, down from a peak of 455 per day just two weeks ago between July 20-26.

But Acadiana is still seeing much faster active spread of the virus now than during its first wave peak between March 30 and April 5, when the region averaged just 73 cases a day.

Acadiana’s running average of 254 cases a day this week accounts for a backlog of 1,714 cases added Tuesday, of which just 427 were not part of the backlog.  

Friday’s new cases give Acadiana 20,668 total infections since the virus was first found in mid-March. The infections were discovered in more than 237,000 tests, for an overall positivity rate of 8.7%.

The 186 new cases of COVID-19 reported in the area Friday came on a basis of 3,713 reported test results, giving the region a one-day positivity rate of just 5%, Acadiana’s lowest single-day rate since July 7.

St. Landry Parish reported the largest number of new cases in Acadiana Friday at 48, followed by Lafayette Parish with 44 and Evangeline Parish with 26.

Recent fluctuations in the number of test results and a major backlog of 30,000 tests reported Tuesday have skewed recent positivity rate trends, which help show the prevalence of the coronavirus within the area. Friday’s 3,713 tests mark a roughly 50% increase over the region’s daily average of new tests reported last week.

Acadiana’s positivity rate in recent weeks has trended well above the 10% threshold set by state and federal health officials to identify troublingly fast spread of the virus, with the region hovering around 15% as of a week ago, according to the state Department of Health.

As new cases of COVID-19 have slowed in recent days, so have overall hospitalizations for the virus in Acadiana, which dropped by six patients Friday to reach 241 people hospitalized for the disease.

Friday’s COVID-19 patient count is the region’s lowest since July 12, and is down significantly from the region’s July 22 peak of 304, though those figures exclude St. Mary Parish.

COVID-related deaths in Acadiana have defied the region’s slowing trend in new cases recently, as the eight-parish region has averaged nine reported deaths a day since Sunday, Acadiana’s fastest rate of death from the virus yet.

But Friday saw a slight dip in that trend with six deaths from COVID-19 reported in the area, the region’s lowest one-day increase in deaths in a week. St. Landry and Vermilion parishes each reported two of Friday’s fatalities, while Evangeline and St. Mary parishes each reported one.

COVID-related deaths are considered a lagging indicator of the virus’ spread as patients typically take between two and four week after contracting COVID-19 to either recover or die from the disease.

Friday’s six reported deaths put Acadiana at 448 total lives lost to the virus, giving the 655,000-person region 6.8 deaths per 10,000 residents, the second lowest per capita figure in the state behind 6.7 in the five-parish Northshore region.

Statewide, 1,500 new COVID-19 infections were reported Friday, an increase from the 1,303 reported across the state Thursday.

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 saw a sharp decrease Friday, with 51 patients removed from the statewide total to reach 1,406 people hospitalized with the disease, while eight patients on ventilators were removed from the state’s count, putting Louisiana at 207 ventilated COVID patients.

Louisiana’s COVID-19 cases grew by 1.2% with Friday’s with 1,500 new cases for a total of 128,746 infections and an overall positivity rate of 8.6%, compared to a single day rate of 7.5% statewide Friday.

Louisiana reported 61 additional COVID-related deaths statewide, the state’s largest one-day jump  in deaths this week, for an increase of 1.5% to put Louisiana at 4,089 lives lost.

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