Avast Ransomware shield locking out Excel files

Just this afternoon, Avast updated itself. I can no longer open Excel files without disabling the Ransomware shield.
My problem sounds very similar to this, but that supposedly was fixed.
https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=200854.0;prev_next=prev#new

My situation. Excel 2010 starter on Windows 7 64 Pro with Avast Internet Security - through 2020 paid license.

Any local file is opened in Read only mode and locked out. If I disable Ransomware shield all is good and things work normal. It worked fine this morning but the most recent update seems to have broken it.

For now I have removed Excel from the blocked apps list. Is this the correct action? It seems that Avast keeps trying to put it back on blocked even after I removed it.

You could also try adding the blocked executable to the the executable Global Exclusions, Avast Settings > General > Exclusions - File Paths.

I had to do this in avast free for an ancient version of winword.exe previously I also had to exclude the executable for Excel. For some reason that isn’t in my exclusion list, but it is no longer pinged.

https://support.avast.com/article/50/ (Ransomware Shield - FAQ)