Mississippi reports record number of COVID-19 related deaths

Published 2:18 pm Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Mississippi reported 79 new COVID-19 related deaths on Tuesday, which is a record number of daily deaths for the state.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs listed the demographic information of some of the individuals who died. Some of the people he listed included an 84-year-old white male, a 67-year-old Black female and a 51-year-old white male.

“These are people who didn’t have to die,” he said, “and that if we did a little bit better, if we collectively were more thoughtful about making sure we didn’t spread COVID, these folks would be alive.”

56 of the deaths reported on Tuesday occurred between Dec.12 and 21, and 23 of the deaths were identified from death certificate reports and occurred between Nov. 20 and Dec. 16.

The state has seen increased COVID-19 case numbers in recent weeks.

“We know that when we start seeing those large numbers of cases, the deaths are regrettably going to follow,” said Dr. Paul Byers, the state epidemiologist.

The state reported 2,191 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Tuesday, bringing the state’s total to 197,691 cases. Mississippi has reported a total of 4,490 COVID-19 related deaths since March.

Vaccines are being rolled out in the state during the ongoing COVID-19 surge.

Mississippi is currently in Phase 1a of its vaccine distribution plan, which will give vaccines to health care workers and long-term care facility residents and staff.

Byers said that Mississippi received an initial allotment of 25,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The state distributed 12,600 of those vaccines to five major health systems in the state, according to Dobbs. CVS and Walgreens are managing the remaining vaccines in this first allotment and will be distributing them to long-term care facilities.

Mississippi has also received 50,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine, according to Byers. Dobbs said that this week, Moderna vaccines are being sent to all hospitals in Mississippi, except for those that received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. These hospitals will be vaccinating staff over the next couple of weeks, according to Dobbs. Moderna doses will start being given to health care workers who work outside hospitals the first week of January.

COVID-19 case and death numbers for several local counties are listed below.

Lauderdale County: 28 new cases; 4,536 total cases since March. One new death, which occurred between Nov. 20 and Dec. 16; 165 total deaths since March.

Newton County: 24 new cases; 1,462 total cases. No new deaths; 32 total deaths.

Kemper County: three new cases; 630 total cases. No new deaths; 19 total deaths.

Clarke County: ten new cases; 1,127 total cases. No new deaths; 55 total deaths.

Neshoba County: 36 new cases; 2,787 total cases. One new death, which occurred between Dec. 12 and 21; 134 total deaths since March.

MSDH presumes 154,669 people have recovered from COVID-19. The department also reported that there are 234 ongoing outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term-care facilities.

COVID-19 data for Mississippi counties