COVID-19 cases in the Golden Triangle continue to pile up in light of the holiday season, with Lowndes County still increasing at the highest rate.
Lowndes County has 4,761 cases as of Wednesday, the most recent update to the Mississippi State Department of Health website. The increase of 633 cases in a week and a half, since Dec. 26, outpaces the 621 new cases between Dec. 16 and Dec 26.
Oktibbeha County saw an increase of 376 cases from Dec. 26 to Wednesday for a total of 3,618. Clay County saw an increase of 162 cases for a total of 1,430, and Noxubee County saw an increase of 118 cases for a total of 1,018, passing the 1,000-case threshold.
Lowndes County has seen 97 deaths of COVID-19, Oktibbeha County has 78, Clay County has 30 and Noxubee County has 20.
Some area school districts have seen new cases, while others have not updated their publicly available data since before winter break.
Two students and 11 employees at the Columbus Municipal School District tested positive for COVID-19 over winter break, from Dec. 19 to Jan. 9, Superintendent Cherie Labat told The Dispatch.
Two staff at Noxubee County School District tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, according to data on the NCSD website. The data only depicts the previous three days in a row.
Lowndes County School District and Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District had not updated the data on their websites as of press time. Both districts’ most recent data reflects the week of Dec. 7-11, when they reported 24 and 26 cases, respectively.
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, but MSDH has not published data more recent than the week of Dec. 14-18.
WPCSD reported between three and 15 new cases among faculty and staff and between 10 and 26 new cases among students that week. If a number of cases is lower than five, MSDH reports it as 1-5.
South Haven Mennonite School and Annunciation Catholic School reported no new cases the week of Dec. 14-18. No other area private schools reported for the week.
Mississippi State University has 26 active cases, 17 students and nine employees, as of Thursday, according to the MSU website.
Mississippi University for Women has had 10 new cases, six students and four employees, between Monday and Thursday, according to the daily case data on the MUW website.
Mississippi has had 231,490 cases and 5,061 deaths as of Thursday, according to the MSDH Twitter account. The 3,255 new cases on Thursday set a new record.
The U.S. reported a record 4,033 deaths of COVID-19 on Thursday, and the 7-day average number of deaths has reached a record 2,750.
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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