South MS has the most new deaths reported Monday, as COVID-19 takes no holiday
The coronavirus doesn’t take a holiday weekend, evidenced by a record number of deaths in South Mississippi as reported Monday by Mississippi Health Department.
The report said 30 additional deaths occurred in South Mississippi, with 27 between July 23 and Sept. 4 and an additional 4 from Aug. 1-30. That is 24% of the state total of 125 deaths added Monday.
The 125 deaths in Mississippi also is the highest reported for a day or weekend.5781
One death previously reported incorrectly in Jackson County was removed, the report said.
Most of the deaths were in two counties — 17 more in Jackson County and 11 more in Harrison County. Pearl River County had 2 and George County 1.
That brings the local total to 1,140 since the pandemic began on March 11, 2020.
Monday’s report also shows 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 over the weekend in South Mississippi and 5,787 new cases in the state.
Sept. 11 is 1.5 years of pandemic
Saturday will be 18 months since the first case of the coronavirus was reported in Mississippi.
Since then
- Mississippi has 452,644 cases and 8,664 deaths.
- More than 91,000 new cases were in August as the delta variant spread
- South Mississippi has 75,200 total cases, with 21,300 reported in August.
Could delta be past peak?
Though South Mississippi still has a large number of cases of the coronavirus, most of them from the delta variant, the data from the state health department shows the numbers are starting to come down.
South Mississippi has half as many new cases reported Monday as there were on Monday, Aug. 16.
Weekend total new cases dropped from:
- 2,036 on Aug. 16
- 1,976 on Aug. 23
- 1,437 on Aug. 30
- 1,000 on Sept. 6
Hospitalizations also declining
The number of people in the hospital and in intensive care are down since mid-August, although a high number are still on life support. The latest hospitalization numbers for Mississippi show that on Sept. 2:
- 1,667 people hospitalized with COVID-19, down from 1,667 on Aug. 19.
- 452 in ICU, down from 486 on Aug. 17
- 348 on ventilators, up from 339 on Aug. 21.
This story was originally published September 6, 2021 at 12:13 PM.
