Mississippi now leads U.S. in percent of population to die of COVID

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been!”                   — John Greenleaf Whittier, 1856

As of this week, Mississippi became the national leader in the percentage of its total population to die of the coronavirus. Thirty of every 10,000 Mississippians have now died of COVID-19.

Mississippi (population 2,963,914) had trailed New Jersey (population 9,288,994) for several weeks, but pulled ahead since the three-day Labor Day weekend. New Jersey has now had 29 COVID deaths for each 10,000 residents.

Mississippi reported 83 COVID deaths today alone. New Jersey reported 17. Because New Jersey has more than three times the population of Mississippi, even if it were to match Mississippi’s daily COVID death count, Mississippi would continue to broaden its death count over the Garden State.

New York state, which, for about a year, lead the nation in the percent of its population to die of COVID, has dropped to fourth place (27 deaths per 10,000) behind Louisiana, which now has had 28 deaths per 10,000, putting our neighboring state in third place in this horrible contest.

The national news media has focused heavily on Texas in recent weeks. Texas reported 341 COVID deaths today alone. However, with a population of over 29-million, Texas has had only 20 COVID deaths for each 10,000 population.

In two days the country will observe the 20th anniversary of the deaths of about 3,000 Americans in Osama Bin Laden’s attacks on New York and Washington. However, nearly three times that number have died of COVID, just in poor Mississippi.

It might have been different, but low COVID vaccination rates, a poor public health system, and weak, vacillating leadership by the state’s governor have put Mississippi number one in this ghastly statistic.

It was 52 years ago this week that this reporter started in the news business at a daily newspaper in his native Missouri. This is the saddest story I have ever written.

It might have been different.

–JWS

Follow this link for more information about how Mississippi became number one: https://newalbanyunionco.com/mississippi-solidly-in-number-two-spot-nationally-in-covid-deaths-per-million-population-gaining-quickly-on-new-jersey/