The state health department released a list of 116 facilities that have current outbreaks – considered one case among residents and staff – late Wednesday, after a judge ruled last week that the agency had to disclose the names.
In total, MSDH is reporting 1,718 resident cases, 1,003 employee cases and 310 resident deaths in long-term care facilities with active outbreaks. Of the 116 facilities with active outbreaks, 27 facilities – about a quarter – have only had one case among staff or residents, despite the disease’s quick-spread in residential facilities.
State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs said on Wednesday that facilities with proper infection control can either keep the virus out or keep it to minimal spread once it does come in, adding that a good rule of thumb in facilities is to assume everyone has it and protect staff and residents accordingly.
“We’ve seen places that had one employee (test positive) and had really great protocols for infection prevention and that was it – it just stopped,” he said. “That’s the kind of thinking we’re going to have to have going forward – we cant test our way out of it, though its an important tool – but combined with proper infection prevention we can do a good job.”
The list comes in the backdrop of drastic case growth over the last two weeks in Mississippi. New cases started to slow mid-May but have quickly reversed, worrying state officials particularly when it comes to not overburdening the health care system – the goal of flattening the curve.
As Dobbs mentioned Wednesday, new cases are diversifying by age. Younger people have driven new cases over the last two weeks – 18 to 29-year-olds now accounting for majority cases, and their case-load growing by 57 percent in just two weeks.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.