Pike County’s spike in newly confirmed coronavirus cases appears to have occurred in mid-April, with the number of new cases falling dramatically over the past two weeks. While health officials say the trend is good news, it doesn’t mean the area is out of the woods yet.
While Pike County’s number of cases surged through mid-April, the state’s total gradually climbed.
“We are very much aware of the surge during the month of April — the doubling or so every so many days,” Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center Infection Preventionist Tammy Bacot said.
Between March 11 and March 18, the first week the State Department of Health aggregated coronavirus diagnosis data, Pike County reported no cases. In that same time frame, there were just 21 recorded cases statewide.
But Pike County’s situation quickly deteriorated, and many soon fell sick. By April 1, the county had 17 cases, a doubling from the week before that. And the doubling of cases would play out each week for a month.
The week of April 8, Pike County reported its first and second deaths from COVID-19. The total number of cases had nearly doubled again to 31, and that figure doubled again by April 15 with 62 confirmed infections.
Between April 15 and April 22, the figure doubled a fourth time for a total of 118 confirmed infections. Pike County also saw its third death that week.
The rate of increase decreased significantly after April 22. Pike County reported 142 cases on April 29, an increase of only 16% from the week prior, and by Wednesday the State Department of Health reported a total of 159 cases and seven deaths, an increase of only 17 from the previous week.
“It has slowed down in Pike County some, it really has,” Bacot said. “We are still doing a good bit of testing.”
During the same period of intensification in Pike County, the statewide total roughly doubled for only the first two weeks, from 937 reported infections on April 1 to 1,915 on April 8 and then 3,087 on April 15. But at that point, the rate of new infections dropped dramatically to around 35%.
Now, the statewide total is growing at about 25% compared to about 15% in Pike County. State health officials have recently said most of the state’s new cases are coming from about a dozen Mississippi counties.
But health officials do not expect the decrease to last, and some are worried that the loosening of restrictions and the reopening of society could trigger a rebound of the virus.
“I don’t expect it to stay slowed-down, though, with the restrictions being relaxed,” Bacot said. “Historically with pandemics, you have at least two to three waves. We’re still in the middle of the first one — I anticipate that we will see an increase in cases.”
Bacot said an uptick in infections should be expected through the summer and into the fall, but she stressed that coronavirus wouldn’t go away simply because it is warm outside.
“The golden rule of being out of the woods is when you’ve seen a decrease in cases each day for 14 consecutive days,” Bacot said. “We certainly have not seen that here.”
On Wednesday, the State Department of Health corrected the running total of cases in Pike County to 159, down one from Tuesday. Seven have died since the beginning of the outbreak.
Statewide, health officials reported 217 new cases and 32 new deaths, five of which were ascertained through death certificate investigation, State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said in a press conference Wednesday afternoon.
“As we’ve explained over the last couple of days, when we reported these deaths, several of the deaths are from death certificate reviews — these are deaths that had occurred previously,” Byers said.
The rate of hospitalization and the numbers of coronavirus patients being treated in a hospital or on ventilators has been stable over the past handful of days, which Byers said is encouraging.
“We are still seeing cases, but if you look at a couple of indicators, I think that they’re still positive,” he said.
Gov. Tate Reeves cautioned people to continue adhering to social distancing guidelines and other restrictions still in place.
“We are still in the heat of this battle, we are still in the fight,” he said. “It is time for us to work together to do more for our fellow Mississippians — This is real, the virus is deadly and it is particularly deadly among those that are older, and those that have preexisting conditions, and those with compromised immune systems.”
Reeves said personal responsibility is the key to winning the fight against coronavirus.
“Many small businesses may not reopen, we are already beginning to hear reports of small restaurants not being able to open their doors because of this virus,” he said. “As I have said many times, you are the most powerful weapon against this virus — you are the one that can keep yourself from spreading it by wearing a mask.”
