Mississippi Quarantines 20,000 With 5,993 Students Positive For COVID; Teen Deaths Rise
With both siblings wearing backpacks, Mkayla Robinson put her arms around her little brother, and the two smiled for a photo on Friday, Aug. 6., as they prepared to leave home to start her final year of junior high and his first day of kindergarten. But eight days into her eighth-grade year at Raleigh Junior High, Robinson died of COVID-19 on Saturday, Aug. 14, mere hours after testing positive for the virus.
She was one of at least 5,993 Mississippi students who tested positive for COVID-19 in the last two weeks, according to data the Mississippi State Department of Health released today. At the same point in August 2020, the Mississippi State Department had reported just 199 cases among students; total confirmed COVID-19 cases did not surpass 5,000 until the end of the semester in December 2020.
Last week alone, 803 schools reported 4,521 positive cases among students. Schools have also confirmed 1,496 cases among teachers and educational staff this month so far. The situation and the deaths of at least two teenagers from COVID-19 since late July has led to increased calls for Gov. Tate Reeves to reverse his opposition to a statewide mask mandate and take aggressive action to stem the viral tide.
“I was thinking about your girls and all the other children I’ve ministered to, all the children I love who cannot yet be vaccinated against this deadly virus, and I am afraid for them, Tate,” the governor’s former pastor, Elizabeth Henry, wrote in an open letter to him that she posted on social media on Aug. 15. Mkayla Robinson, she noted, was close in age to one of his own daughters.
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/14927/mississippi-quarantines-20000-with-5993-students-positive-for-covid-teen-deaths-rise/