Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The state of Louisiana reported results from nearly 56,000 COVID-19 tests Tuesday, according to statistics reported by the Louisiana Department of Health.

In total, there were 55,947 tests reported by the LDH in Tuesday’s report, which included a backlog of cases dating back to May 28. It is by far the largest single day of testing so far — the previous highest increase was 45,688 tests on June 19, but that is misleading because there was no report on June 18.

The previous single-day increase was 33,620 tests reported on July 20.

The federally recommended benchmark for testing is 200,000 tests per month, or approximately 6,600 tests per day.

Among the tests reported by the LDH on Tuesday, 6.5 percent were positive for COVID-19. This continued a streak of eight straight reports of a positive rate lower than the federal benchmark of 10 percent.

So far, the state of Louisiana has reported 1,449,857 tests.

The state reported 3,615 new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday, although some of those cases date back as far as May 28. The current state caseload since the start of the pandemic is 124,461.

The Tuesday caseload was the highest report since June 26, which saw an additional 3,840 new cases.

Tuesday’s report also listed 27 new deaths, bringing the total number of COVID-19 fatalities in Louisiana to 3,937. Hospitalizations fell by nine to 1,487, and the number of patients on ventilators increased by 10 to 240.

As of Tuesday, the state has reported that 74,246 patients have recovered from the disease. The most recent report on this statistic was released July 27.

In Washington Parish alone, Tuesday’s report listed a total of 1,211 cases and 58 deaths since the start of the pandemic. The parish has reported 12,929 tests.

The LDH releases new statistics every day at noon, except for Saturdays. They can be found online at ldh.la.gov/coronavirus.