Leflore County has recorded its 84th death from COVID-19.
The victim was one of 16 to die in Mississippi between July 28 and Oct. 8 whose death was later attributed to the coronavirus by coroners’ death certificates, the Mississippi State Department of Health reported Wednesday.
The victim was Black and a resident of a nursing home or other long-term care facility.
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This is the first death of a long-term care facility resident to be recorded in Leflore County since late August. To date, 55% of all the people to die of COVID-19 in the county had been living in long-term care facilities.
Nursing homes are particularly vulnerable to bad outcomes from the virus because their residents are elderly or in poor health.
In Leflore County, Blacks have accounted for 68 of the COVID-19 deaths, or 81%, exceeding the estimated overall Black population of 75%.
Meanwhile, the infection rates in Leflore County and Mississippi overall are rising.
For the week ending Monday, the county’s infection rate was the ninth highest out of the state’s 82 counties, averaging 3.4 new cases daily of COVID-19 per 10,000 residents, according to data tracked by the Harvard Global Health Institute and the Brown School of Public Health.
Mississippi, averaging 2.17 new cases daily per 10,000 residents, ranks 19th in the nation overall.
Leflore County has the seventh-most deaths from COVID-19 in the state. Hinds County, at 168, has the most. The death count statewide is now at 3,140.
As of Wednesday morning, Greenwood Leflore Hospital had eight patients in its COVID-19 unit, none of whom were on ventilators.
