JACKSON, Miss. — Health officials in Mississippi confirmed a child has died because of the coronavirus.
In a press conference on Wednesday, health officials made the announcement. They did not provide many details about where the child lives, or the ethnicity of the child because of privacy. But they did say the child was battling the coronavirus for nearly six months.
Dr. Thomas Dobbs, a health official with the Mississippi State Department of Health, said this was the youngest person to die due to COVID-19.
“We’re sad to report the death of a healthy child between the ages of 1 and 5 years old,” Dobbs said. “A powerful reminder that even though most people get over this just fine, even young healthy people can die from it.”
Health officials said the family wants to remain anonymous and did not provide any details about the child. But they said the child battled COVID along with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, or MIS-C, a byproduct of COVID found almost exclusively in children.
Mississippi’s Gov. Tate Reeves is concerned about gatherings and events that occur outside of schools. He said they are noticing a trend of rising cases because people are letting their guard down, amid the ongoing pandemic.
“More and more of the transmission that we see in schools is likely to come from either transmission in schools,” Reeves said. “Which we’ve not seen a lot of or transmission that occurs from unnecessary social events.”
Right now, there are 532 teachers and more than 3,700 students in quarantine after exposure to the pandemic, the state is upgrading its defenses.
“We are having less transmission in our communities because we’re all working so very hard. And that’s something that will continue,” Reeves said.
Mississippi is sending 1.8 million community masks to the schools: that will be 900,000 for adults and 900,000 for youth, according to officials in the Magnolia State.
