New COVID-19 cases are continuing to fall in parts of the Golden Triangle, in keeping with state and national trends.
Lowndes and Oktibbeha counties recorded fewer new cases from Jan. 20 to Wednesday than in the week from Jan. 13 to 20, according to data from the Mississippi Department of Health website.
Lowndes County still has the area’s highest occurrence of total positive cases and deaths of COVID-19, with 5,654 cases and 126 deaths as of 6 p.m. Wednesday. The 191 new cases dropped from 277 the previous week, which in turn dropped from 355 the week before that.
Oktibbeha County has seen 4,149 cases and 87 deaths since last March, with 133 new cases in a week after recording 174 the previous week.
Clay and Noxubee counties saw a slight upward trend in new cases. Clay County’s new cases went up from 71 to 74, and Noxubee County’s new cases went up from 25 to 37.
Clay County has seen 1,701 total cases and 39 deaths. Noxubee County has seen 1,151 cases and 26 deaths.
Mississippi has seen a total of 270,476 positive COVID cases and 5,945 deaths since March 2020. Nationwide, more than 430,000 people have died of COVID-19. However, new cases are decreasing nationwide as vaccines are becoming more available.
Some, but not all, area schools are also seeing decreases in new cases per week.
Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District saw six student cases and six staff cases during the week of Jan. 18-22, according to data updated weekly on the SOCSD website.
Columbus Municipal School District had six positive staff cases, an increase from one the previous week, but saw student cases drop from nine to four from Jan. 15 to Jan. 22, Superintendent Cherie Labat told The Dispatch.
Lowndes County School District saw an increase of one case overall, from 15 to 16, according to data on the LCSD website.
Noxubee County School District has not updated the case data on its website since last week, and Superintendent Rodriguez Broadnax did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. NCSD had two positive student cases and three staff cases as of Jan. 20.
The West Point Consolidated School District, as well as area private schools and Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, report their case data to MSDH weekly. If a number of cases is lower than five, MSDH reports it as 1-5.
Three WPCSD schools each reported between one and five new student cases from Jan. 18-22, meaning the district could have as many as 15 new student cases. The district office reported one to five staff cases. A week earlier, WPCSD reported as many as 10 student cases and 20 staff cases.
MSMS, Starkville Christian School, Annunciation Catholic School in Columbus and South Haven Mennonite School in Macon all reported no positive COVID cases for the week of Jan. 18-22. No other area private schools reported to MSDH for the week.
Mississippi State University recorded a slight drop in cases from Jan. 21 to Thursday, according to data updated daily on its website. MSU has 92 cases, 82 from students and 10 from employees, as of Thursday. A week earlier, MSU had 100 cases, 89 from students and 11 from staff.
Conversely, cases spiked at Mississippi University for Women between Jan. 22 and Thursday, according to its daily updates on its website. Two employees and 12 students tested positive in that time, and all except one student and one employee were on campus within seven days before testing positive, the data shows.
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.