COVID-19 weekly summary 15Jun2020: MS cases down, hospital trends up

Week of June 9 – June 15*

STATEWIDE MISSISSIPPI

• Mississippi had 2,031 new covid-19 cases and 58 new deaths this week, for a total of 19,799 cases and 895 deaths since reporting began on March 11, 2020. These reports represent increases of 11.4% and 6.9% respectively. This compares to 12.8% and 13.3% last week. The trend in both new cases and new deaths is downward this week.
• Mississippi’s rate of 301 deaths per million of population puts it in the 13th place in the US. Last week the state held 14th place.
• There have been 80,864 tests per million of population in MS, which places it (still) in the middle of near-by states. LA and TN have tested more per million; AL and AR have lower figures. For instance, Louisiana has tested over 110,000 per million, Alabama only about 60,500.
• Hospitalized patients:
  • On June 8th, there were 443 patients with COVID-19 cases in MS hospitals, at week’s end there were 467. This is an average of   459 patients hospitalized daily, compared to 419 during the previous week. Trending is upward for hospitalizations.
  • Covid patients requiring ICU care averaged 160 patients daily, which is significantly above last week’s 139 patients. Trending is also upward for ICU patients.
  • Ventilators were required for an average of 100 patients daily during the current reporting week; there were 87 during the previous week. So trending is, again, significantly upward.
• Long Term Care (LTC) facilities:
  • As of June 15th, 83 LTC facilities statewide reported coronavirus outbreaks, compared to 106 facilities for the week reported out on june 8th.
  • LTC facilities accounted for 11.2% of total cases statewide (2215 of 19,799).
  • LTC facilities accounted for 51.1% of total deaths statewide (457 of 895).
  • New cases in LTC facilities were only 7.4 % of the state’s total (150 of 2031).
  • New deaths in LTC facilities were 37.9% of the state’s total (22 of 58).

NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI (NEMS)

• As of June 15th, NEMS reported a total of 248 new cases, for a total of 1842, an increase of 15.6%.
• NEMS had 6 new deaths, for a total of 103, and increase of 6.2%.
• The above two trends are trending downward from June 8th report of 18.2% increase in cases and 19.3 % increase in deaths.
• NEMS Long Term Care (LTC) facilities:
• in NEMS 16 LTC facilities in 9 Counties have active outbreaks of COVID-19, this is down from the previous week’s 24 facilities in 12 counties.
• In NEMS, LTC facilities accounted for 17% of total NEMS cases (313 of 1842) and 57.3% of   total NEMS deaths (59 of 103).
• In NEMS, LTC Facilities accounted for 3.6 % of new NEMS cases (9 of 248) and 33.3% of new NEMS deaths ( 2 of 6).

The Take-away for this week

The percent of increase of both total statewide new cases and new deaths through June 15 were significantly down from the previous week. Statewide, however, all the hospital reporting criteria (number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, number in ICU, number requiring ventilator support) trended upward fairly significanatly. This reverses two previous weeks of downward trending.

Mississippi completed testing all patients in long term care facilities this past week, so it would be expected for those facilities to begin trending downward significantly, as long as they remain closed to the general public. It remains unclear how many employees have been affected by COVID-19. Additionally, the “self-reporting” used to name facilities with active cases is reported to have a good deal of inconsistency.

Statewide, LTC facilities accounted for less than 8% of new cases. In Northeast Mississippi, LTC facilities are currently acccounting for less than 4% of new cases. As testing continues into the future, most of those new cases should continue to be in the public realm, rather than in facilities.

There is an increasing tendency of the general public to take precautionary measures fairly lightly, and more and more venues with larger and larger crowds are opening up. Vulnerable Mississippians must continue to exercise even more caution.

If new positive cases in the public do not self-isolate or quarantine as required, vulnerable folks will be in growing danger.

Several states have reported considerable rises in their numbers since reopening their various venues. Several states are “blaming” Memorial Day gatherings, whose exposures would have begun showing up in the past week or 10 days.  Mississippi is experiencing a slow overall decrease in percentages of increase, but with occasional spikes that indicate the state is not out of the woods yet. An additional problem is that reporting criteria change from time to time and seem rife with inconsistencies.

*Daily MSDH reports are from the previous day’s data.

Report for the previous weekly report, June 8: http://newalbanyunionco.com/covid-weekly-8jun2020-record-cases/