A woman in her 50s has become the 92nd person to die from COVID-19 in Leflore County.
Meanwhile, Greenwood Mayor Carolyn McAdams, who’s concerned about the surge in COVID-19 cases in the county following Thanksgiving, is urging residents to take seriously the health measures recommended to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
The patient died of the respiratory disease Monday at Greenwood Leflore Hospital, according to hospital spokeswoman Christine Hemphill.
The death was one of 37 reported Friday by the Mississippi State Department of Health. Twenty-three of those deaths occurred between Nov. 26 and Dec. 3, and the other 14 occurred between Nov. 10 and Nov. 19 and were identified from death certificate reports.
Mississippi’s total fatality count from the virus as of Friday’s report from the state Health Department now stands at 3,916.
The Leflore County victim was Black. Blacks have accounted for 73, or 79%, of all COVID-19 deaths in the county. The county has an estimated Black population of 75%.
There were 2,164 cases of COVID-19 in Leflore County as of Friday’s report by the Health Department, which was an increase of 117 from the 2,047 cases reported Nov. 27.
“People need to be as cautious as possible and stop thinking that everything’s back to normal, because it’s not,” McAdams said. “The virus is still very much alive.”
The mayor said people should still comply with the city’s mask mandate, wash their hands often and practice social distancing.
The biggest issue in the city, McAdams said, is that people are gathering in groups of about 15 to 20 people.
“It’s a real serious issue, and I think people have just gotten relaxed and think the virus is over,” she said. “It’s only going to get worse until we have a vaccine.”
McAdams said most businesses have complied with the mask mandate, aside from a few stragglers.
Leflore County’s infection rate ranked 51st out of Mississippi’s 82 counties, according to data tracked by the Harvard Global Health Institute and the Brown School of Public Health. For the week ending Wednesday, the county averaged 4.92 new cases of COVID-19 daily per 10,000 residents.
As of Friday morning, Greenwood Leflore Hospital was treating eight patients for the virus, Hemphill said. Five of those patients are on ventilators.
•Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
