There is no “all clear” signal yet: Covid-19 Weekly Review 11May20

The weekly statistics are in, and statewide reports show Mississippi’s percentage increase of new cases is trending generally downward. Whether those trends are enough to withstand the reopening of the economy depends on how well Mississippians continue to practice all possible precautions.

Where are we statewide?

As of today, the 404 new cases reported on May 8th appear to have been our peak. Those numbers were as of the evening of May 7th. The peak is the day with the most new cases, and should be followed by continuously decreasing reports of new case numbers. MS has had a couple of false peaks, low reports that were not continuously followed by lower reports. So far, the current downward trend has lasted 4 days. This is far short of the two weeks’ trend originally proposed necessary before communities “reopened.”

Statewide, the weekly increase of 1797 new cases was a 23% increase, down from the previous week’s 29% increase. There was a 40% state wide increase in deaths ( to 435); this was an increase over the previous weeks increase (35%), and is to be expected. Deaths may go up for a while, though new cases continue downward.

Where are we in Northeast Mississippi?

In Northeast MS three counties had higher percentage increases of new cases than the state’s average of 23%. Some are trending up, some down:

On 5-11 Union County increased by 67%, up to 50 total cases from the 30 case total on 5-4. There had been a 50% increase from April 27 to May 4th, 15 cases to 30 cases. Trending up.
Clay County on 5-11 had 66 cases, up 27% from the 52 cases present on 5-4. Clay saw a 67% increase between 4-27 and 5-4, from 31 to 52 cases. Trending down.
Tishomingo County was up 25% this week to 10 cases, compared to a 0% increase on 5-4, which had the same number of cases (8) for two weeks. Trending up.

Three Northeast MS counties, which have had the highest raw number of cases, are seeing their percentages drop below that of the state average.

Though Monroe County has the area’s highest number of cases in Northeast MS (199) as of 5-11, that is only a 14% increase from the week of 4-11. This makes 4 weeks of downward trends in the weekly percent of increase.
LaFayette County, with 101 total cases had a less than 9% increase since May 4, but that is up from the 6% from 4-27 to 5-4
Lee County, with 80 cases total as of 5-11 was below the state’s average with an 11% increase, but this was trending upward from the week of May 4, which only had a 3% increase.

What is the take-away from current weekly trends?

One can see that these trends, while generally optimistic, are far from being an “all clear” notice. Traveling the area gives evidence that many, many Mississippians do not understand this, or do not believe it. The governor and many community government entities have emphasized that it remains important for us to observe precautions against contracting coronavirus. Congregating in large groups, failure to use some sort of mask, sharing food and drinks are still dangerous behaviors. They endanger not only the immediate participants, but all those who may later come into contact with them.

In Mississippi the nursing homes are being singled out as hot spots for the coronavirus, and they are, to a large degree. The fact is that 112 nursing homes and other long term care facilities, as of today’s reports, account for 1,223 total Covid-19 cases and 193 deaths. However, that is less than 13% of the state’s cases and about 44% of its deaths. There is certainly no basis in these figures to discount the danger throughout the state as a whole.

Further details of these statistics are available at https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/14,0,420.html

**Weekly Covid-19 trending*: National, Mississippi, NE Miss.**

Data file	3-30-20	4-6-20	4-13-20	4-20-20	4-27-20	5-4-20	5-11-20
USA Cases	122,653	352,160	565,231	770,076	993,852	1,207,552	1,385,834
Deaths	2112	10,369	22,875	41,316	56,009	69,374	81,795
MS Cases	847	1738 +105%	2942 +69%	4512 +53%	6094 +35%	7877 +29%	9674 +23%
Deaths	16	51 +219%	98 +92%	169 +72%	229 +36%	310 +35%	435 +40%
NE MS Cases	116	204 +76%	325 +59%	502 +54%	679 +35%	810 +19%	930 +15%
Deaths	3	11 +267%	19 +73%	32 +68%	41 +28%	59 +44%	73 +24%
Alcorn Cases	1	6	7	7	8	10	10
Deaths							1
Benton Cases	4	5	5	8	9	12	13
Deaths							0
Calhoun Cases	3	9	24	42	50	56	58
Deaths				2	3	4	4
Chickasaw Cases	12	15	30	45	64	78	93
Deaths		2	2	4	5	8	10
Clay Cases	4	9	20	26	31	52	66
Deaths				1	2	2	3
Itawamba Cases	3	4	9	26	49	64	69
Deaths				1	2	4	7
LaFayette Cases	14	22	30	67	88	93	101
Deaths		1	1	3	3	3	3
Lee Cases	23	30	46	63	70	72	80
Deaths	1	2	4	4	4	4	4
Marshall Cases	13	23	34	38	41	48	56
Deaths		1	2	2	2	2	2
Monroe Cases	5	16	37	75	144	175	199
Deaths		1	2	5	9	16	21
Pontotoc Cases	4	12	15	18	18	22	23
Deaths		1	1	2	2	2	2
Prentiss Cases	4	10	14	25	32	32	36
Deaths					1	1	2
Tippah Cases	23	36	45	47	52	58	66
Deaths	2	3	6	7	7	10	11
Tishomingo Cases	0	1	2	4	8	8	10
Deaths							0
Union Cases	3	6	7	11	15	30	50
Deaths			1	1	1	2	3

*All state data is from MS State Department of Health and is as of 6 PM on the day prior to reporting National data is from World-O-Meter and is current as of date of our report.

PDF of Chart: Covid-19 2 5-11-20