COVID Update

So far Lincoln Parish isn’t seeing the uptick in COVID-19 cases that appears to be impacting other parts of the country.

According to Louisiana Department of Health, only five new cases have been confirmed in the parish this month. That’s after a spate of days in March that saw no new cases of the respiratory virus.

Northern Louisiana Medical Center hasn’t seen a COVID patient in two weeks, hospital spokesperson Tami Davis said Wednesday.

“As of today, we have no COVID and no flu,” Davis said.

COVID cases are on the rise again mostly in the northeastern U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC says the increase is driven by the BA.2 subvariant of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

Locally, 6,168 COVID cases have been confirmed in Lincoln Parish since the pandemic began in March 2020. Another 5,308 more cases are suspected, but not proven.

Both newly confirmed and suspected local COVID cases rapidly plateaued beginning in February, after record-setting increases fueled by the Omicron variant in late 2021.

However, over the last two weeks the parish COVID positivity rate has gone up, albeit slightly. The rate is now 1%, up from .3% two weeks ago, LDH reports.

Positivity is the percent of tests administered that are positive for the coronavirus.

But despite the overall COVID slowdown, local deaths attributed to the virus continue to climb.

At least 117 parish residents are now confirmed to have died of COVID-19, with 28 more deaths possibly attributable to the virus. The confirmed death toll has increased by seven since early March.