Golden Age nursing home has another outbreak of COVID-19.
A week after coming off the list of Mississippi long-term care facilities with at least one positive case of the new coronavirus, the Greenwood nursing home is expected to return any day.
That’s because one of its residents tested positive for the virus earlier this week, said Allan Hammons, a spokesman for the nursing home.
It will join Riverview Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, which was identified last week by the Mississippi State Department of Health as having an active outbreak.
Golden Age’s previous outbreak lasted seven weeks and resulted in 17 resident deaths, nursing home officials reported. Seventy-two other residents as well as 37 employees tested positive for the disease at some point during that outbreak but later recovered.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.
Residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are particularly susceptible to bad outcomes from the virus.
They account for 41, or 73%, of Leflore County’s 56 deaths from COVID-19.
Although Leflore County has not officially recorded any deaths related to the virus since July 7, it still has the fourth-highest number of deaths of the 82 counties. It was only recently surpassed by Hinds County, which is now at 58 deaths with a population eight times the size of Leflore County.
Lauderdale County at 81 deaths and Neshoba County at 77 have together led the death count since late May.
The original version of this article included an incorrect total for the number of deaths in Leflore County.
