This past week Mississippi’s state health department has reported the lowest daily case totals of COVID-19 in about a month, but the state’s test positivity rate remains one of the highest in the nation.

The seven-day rolling average for new cases reached 847 on Wednesday, its lowest point since July 15. However, as testing numbers mirrored a similar decrease since the start of August, Mississippi’s weekly positivity rate — the number of new cases divided by the number of new tests, over a week’s span — has remained roughly the same over the last two weeks, at around 20%.

Hospitalizations from the disease have slowed, as the seven-day rolling average has decreased for ten straight days, although patients in ICUs and using ventilators have increased in recent days.

As of Monday, Mississippi ranked third in new cases per capita, according to the Harvard Global Health Institute’s tracker.

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Alex Rozier, from New York City, is Mississippi Today’s data and environment reporter. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Open Secrets, and on NBC.com. In 2019, Alex was a grantee through the Pulitzer Center’s Connected Coastlines program, which supported his coverage around the impact of climate change on Mississippi fisheries.