Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

VIDALIA — On Wednesday, Concordia Parish Office of Homeland Security officials reported three new cases of the novel coronavirus and a total of 52 cases since the first recorded case in the parish on March 28.

OEP Director Timothy Vanier said all three of the new COVID-19 patients are black females who are ages 26, 50 and 88. They were each tested at Riverland Medical Center and are now quarantined at home, Vanier said.

Of the reported COVID-19 cases in the parish, there were 33 female patients, 19 males, two Hispanic, six white and 44 African Americans, Vanier said.

As of Wednesday, 13 patients are in isolation at home and none of them are being hospitalized.

There are still a total of four COVID-19-related deaths reported in Concordia Parish.

On Tuesday, Vanier said a total of 31 Concordia Parish people had recovered from the virus and out of those 31 patients, one was an elderly male who was on a ventilator in a Rapides Parish hospital who is now back at his residence and doing well.

“My goal is to offer the general public some good news versus the doom and gloom of the rising numbers that this office reports on an almost daily basis,” Vanier said, adding it is still not time to relax precautions against the disease.

“Even though there have been 31 patients who tested positive and are now doing well, this is not the time to become complacent. As a parish we need to continue to be vigilant in stopping the spread of this disease by wearing mask, social distancing, and continuous and thorough hand washing.  It would be such a blessing to be able to start an email with ‘The Concordia Parish OHSEP hasn’t received any new positive COVID-19 cases in Concordia Parish’ and an even bigger blessing to be able to say ‘There has been no positive COVID-19 reports in the Miss-Lou area.’”