Three new COVID-19 deaths in St. Mary

Three new St. Mary COVID-19 deaths have been reported for the 24 hours ending at noon Friday, the Louisiana Office of Public Health said.

The Friday report brings the St. Mary death toll to 23. One of those newly reported deaths may actually have been a fatality reported last week by Coroner Eric Melancon but that had never shown up the daily OPH reports.

Also in Friday's statistics:

--Two new St. Mary COVID-19 positives were reported for a total of 193 after 1,118 tests.

--Nine new positives were reported in St. Martin for a total of 241 after 1,857 tests. The death toll remained at 17.

--Seven new positives were reported in Assumption for a total of 189 after 763 tests. The death toll remained at six.

Statewide:

--710 new positives were reported, bringing the total to 28,711, of whom 17,303 are believed to have recovered. The state and commercial labs have performed more than 162,000 tests.

The number is higher than the state has reported in the last week to 10 days. Gov. John Bel Edwards said Friday that 381 of the tests came from two commercial labs that are reporting for the first time, and may reflect cases that are several days old.

--65 new deaths raised the statewide count to 1,927 since the pandemic began.

--Six more people have been hospitalized for a total of 1,607.

--The number of people on ventilators fell by one to 230.