Parish COVID numbers still on upswing
Leader photos by NANCY BERGERON
Lincoln Parish Police Juror T.J. Cranford hands a free at-home COVID-19 test kit to a motorist in line during Thursday’s kit distribution at the Lincoln Parish Public Safety Complex. Ruston residents and residents of unincorporated areas of the parish scarfed up 395 available kits in just over two hours. Vehicles began arriving at the Lincoln Parish Public Safety Complex an hour before giveaway began. The kits, like the one below, were made available by the Louisiana Department of Health, and were distributed through the parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. The parish received 645 kits dispersed among all municipalities.
New daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Lincoln Parish continue double-digit increases, marking an average so far this week of about 32 additional cases every day.
As of noon Thursday, the Louisiana Department of Health reported a total of 5,836 confirmed cases of the respiratory virus had occurred in Lincoln Parish since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Some 127 of those cases have been added since Monday, according to LDH tallies. LDH now counts reinfections in the daily totals. The state began keeping closer tabs on reinfections in December when the Omicron variant began to surge.
However, the parishby-parish case counts do not separate reinfections from first-time infections.
For almost all of January, the daily count has jumped by between 40 and 50 cases. Since Jan. 1, the parish has 858 confirmed new cases.
This month has also seen the number of confirmed local COVID deaths go up by three. The sum stands at 105. Another 18 deaths are thought to have been caused by COVID, according to LDH.
