Widening the lens on COVID-19 beyond Mississippi

COVID-19 has affected every continent except Antarctica and nearly every country on earth in the few months it has been in existence. Although we’ve been concentrating on Warren County and Mississippi in our daily reporting, there is a much bigger picture.

Starting with the tightest lens, in Warren County, cases have gone from 133 to 262 in the past 30 days, nearly doubling. The death toll in the county has tripled during the same time, from four deaths on May 17 to 12 deaths on June 16. Most of the deaths in Warren are in one nursing home, Heritage House Nursing Center, which has suffered eight deaths among its residents.

Neighboring counties

Zooming out to neighboring counties, Hinds, just to Warren County’s east, has been Mississippi’s virus epicenter since the beginning of the crisis. Tuesday, the county tallied 1,348 COVID-19 cases and 28 deaths.

Yazoo County’s cases have exploded. The county now reports 350 cases and six deaths, two of them in long-term care facilities.

Claiborne County reports 142 cases and nine deaths, eight of which were residents in long-term care facilities. As of June 11, Claiborne County Senior Care is the site of 11 employee and 41 resident cases plus six resident deaths.

Sharkey County reports eight cases, no deaths and no outbreaks in long-term care facilities.

Issaquena County remains the only county in the state without any reported cases.

Across the river in Louisiana, Madison Parish reports 287 cases.

COVID-19 across Mississippi

Total cumulative cases in Mississippi number 20,152 and 915 deaths Tuesday. In the last 30 days, cases have increased by 8,856 cases and deaths by 393. More than 1,000 Mississippians have fallen ill since Friday, June 12, only four days ago.

In all, 58 of Mississippi’s 82 counties now report more than 100 cases each, and 33 counties report 200 or more cases. Twelve counties report more than 400 cases each:

Only Sharkey and Issaquena counties report fewer than 10 cases.

Six counties report no deaths from the virus: Quitman, Tishomingo, Stone, Benton, Sharkey and Issaquena. The following 30 counties report 10 or more deaths:

 Neighboring States

Widening the lens again to look at neighboring states, Louisiana is reporting 47,706 cases and 2,930 deaths, more than double Mississippi’s cases and three times the number of deaths.

Arkansas reports 13,191 cases and 188 deaths.

Tennessee reports 31,830 cases and 493 deaths.

Alabama reports 26,524 cases and 779 deaths

While Mississippi doesn’t physically share a border with Florida, it’s close enough to be considered a neighbor. Florida is currently reporting 80,109 cases and 2,993 deaths.

 COVID-19 in the U.S.

If you’re still reading, looking at the cases and deaths in the U.S. as a whole, the numbers will become abstract and mind numbing if they haven’t already. They’re simply too large for our minds to comprehend.

Cumulative cases in the U.S. have now topped 2.1 million, about 0.6% of the nation’s population, and 116,567 Americans have died from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. tipped over 1 million cases around April 27, meaning it took roughly 50 days for cases to double.

The number of deaths have officially surpassed all the country’s deaths in World War I, known as the “War to End All Wars,” and are more than the number of American deaths in the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.

About 21% of cases and a quarter of U.S. deaths have occurred in New York State, which has been the country’s viral epicenter for months. Rounding out the five states with the most cases and deaths are New Jersey, California, Illinois and Massachusetts, all with more than 100,000 cases and 5,000 deaths each. New York alone has more than 400,000 cases and 30,000 deaths.

 COVID-19 in the world

If your mind rebelled when looking at U.S. numbers, it may turn inside out attempting to grasp the global picture.

As of Tuesday, June 6, the number of confirmed, reported cases in the world is more than 8 million, with 436,899 deaths attributed to the virus.

The number of worldwide cases has doubled since about May 9, about 38 days, and deaths since about April 28.

Of course, the worldwide number could be much higher. Many nations of the world do not have the technical and medical sophistication of the U.S., Europe and other so-called “rich” nations. Others are ruled by regimes that tightly control all information including data on COVID-19. Turkmenistan and North Korea, for example, have yet to report one COVID-19 case or death, and are among a dozen nations that have not reported at all.

Of countries that are reporting at least somewhat reliable data, the U.S. leads the world in cases and deaths and has for some time. It has twice as many cases and deaths as the No. 2 country, Brazil. Brazil’s cases have more than doubled in the last three weeks.

Rounding out the top five nations in cases are Russia, India and the United Kingdom with Spain not far behind.

The U.S. and the world’s fatality rate for the virus is about 5.4%.

The number of deaths pale in comparison to the Spanish Flu, which took about 675,000 lives in the U.S. and at least 50 million worldwide over the course of three waves over about 15 or 16 months between spring 1918 and summer 1919. The Spanish Flu also took an inordinate number of lives among young, healthy people while the majority of those killed by COVID-19 are over 65 and those with underlying health conditions.

COVID-19 has been around now for about six or seven months to date based on the best data available, but it is not going anywhere based on the numbers so far. Although it is not as fatal as the Spanish Flu, it’s certainly nothing to take lightly.

Wear your mask. Practice social distancing. Wash your hands.