18 new COVID cases in local parishes

St. Mary has 13 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and St. Martin has five for the 24 hours ending at midday Monday, the Louisiana Office of Public Health reported. One new fatality was also reported in St. Mary.

Statewide, the number of COVID-positive people in hospitals fell for a second straight day.

St. Mary has now had 2,493 confirmed COVID cases since the pandemic began. Those positives were detected with molecular tests. Another 140 resulted from the less sensitive antigen tests and are considered probable.

St. Martin's confirmed case count rose to 3,037 with 148 probables.

Assumption had no new confirmed cases, so the count remains at 1,032 with 124 probables.

The confirmed COVID-related fatality was the 92nd for St. Mary, with another six deaths listed as probably COVID-related. The tolls remain at 70 with five probables in St. Martin and 25 with one probable in Assumption.

Statewide:

--1,022 new cases raise the confirmed count to 250,292 with 19,351 probables.

--27 newly reported fatalities raise the toll to 6,535 with 310 probables.

--The number of COVID-positive people in hospitals fell by six to 1,527.

--The number of people on ventilators dropped by 15 to 147.