Panola County Emergency Management director Daniel Cole, along with other officials closely watching the State Dept. of Health’s daily postings of Mississippi and each county’s positive tests returns, was relieved to see a single digit release for Panola on Sunday.

Statewide positives for the coronavirus were 226 with five new deaths. This was a drastic decrease in reported cases each day last week as Mississippians prepared for the Independence Day holiday. Officials worried that holiday gatherings would increase the spread of the virus, especially between those carrying the strain but without any symptoms of the COVID-19 infection that has nominal negative health effects on some people and ravages the respiratory system of others, occasionally proving fatal to some patients.

In Panola County, just five new cases were reported. This follows four days of double digit cases, and a total of 91 reported positives from Tuesday to Friday. The five new ones were from data gathered by state health officials through Saturday afternoon.

Panola County has a recorded 350 cases of coronavirus infections, with six deaths, since the March 11 beginning of the Health Dept.’s data gathering. Some of those positive patients experienced very mild symptoms, some no symptoms, with few requiring hospitalization. As is the case nationwide, a great majority of the reported cases in Panola have recovered and now have no symptoms.

Some stores were closed part of the weekend – the largest being the Love’s Travel Stop at the North Batesville exit – because of positive cases in staff or customers who caused exposures, and more will likely continue sporadically as the Emergency Management office works to identify outbreaks in the county, including industries and service-based businesses.

The Board of Supervisors are scheduled to meet Monday morning at 9 a.m. for their required first of the month meeting and will likely hear an update from Cole about the overall coronavirus reach in Panola County, and what actions county government should be taking to slow the spread.

Below is a breakdown from the MSDH for each county’s positive tests and deaths as of Saturday afternoon.

Cases and Deaths by County

Totals of all reported cases since March 11, including those in long-term care (LTC) facilities.

Detailed reporting of long-term care information will resume on Monday.

County	Total Cases	Total Deaths
Adams	311	18
Alcorn	69	2
Amite	91	2
Attala	360	23
Benton	36	0
Bolivar	334	14
Calhoun	130	4
Carroll	165	11
Chickasaw	277	18
Choctaw	74	4
Claiborne	274	10
Clarke	207	24
Clay	250	10
Coahoma	201	6
Copiah	602	15 *
Covington	356	5
Desoto	1594	16
Forrest	869	42
Franklin	45	2
George	88	3
Greene	105	8
Grenada	483	5
Hancock	128	13
Harrison	912	11
Hinds	2498	40
Holmes	553	41
Humphreys	147	9
Issaquena	9	1
Itawamba	135	8
Jackson	622	16
Jasper	262	6
Jefferson	107	3
Jefferson Davis	111	4
Jones	1124	49
Kemper	179	14
Lafayette	391	4
Lamar	458	7
Lauderdale	909	79
Lawrence	177	2
Leake	578	19
Lee	547	18
Leflore	487	51
Lincoln	460	34
Lowndes	483	13
Madison	1300	34
Marion	281	11
Marshall	232	3
Monroe	401	30
Montgomery	132	2
Neshoba	988	71
Newton	339	9
Noxubee	263	8
Oktibbeha	541	26
Panola	350	6
Pearl River	254	32
Perry	66	4
Pike	431	12
Pontotoc	286	6
Prentiss	108	3
Quitman	76	0
Rankin	934	12
Scott	771	15
Sharkey	37	0
Simpson	317	3
Smith	218	11
Stone	65	1
Sunflower	372	7
Tallahatchie	136	4
Tate	283	10
Tippah	130	11
Tishomingo	80	1
Tunica	100	3
Union	207	9
Walthall	199	5
Warren	515	18
Washington	584	9
Wayne	545	13
Webster	127	10
Wilkinson	94	9
Winston	261	6
Yalobusha	170	7
Yazoo	509	6
Total	30,900	1,111

* Note: A death previously reported in Copiah County has been found not to be COVID-19 related. It has been removed from the total number of state deaths and the number of deaths in Copiah County.

The numbers in this table are provisional. County case numbers and deaths may change as investigation finds new or additional information about residence.

Case Classifications

Mississippi investigates and reports both probable and confirmed cases and deaths according to the CSTE case definition.

	Confirmed	Probable	Total
Cases	30,671	229	30,900
Deaths	1,093	18	1,111

Confirmed cases and deaths are generally determined by positive PCR tests, which detect the presence of ongoing coronavirus infection.

Probable cases are those who test positive by other testing methods such as antibody or antigen, and have recent symptoms consistent with COVID-19, indicating a recent infection.

Probable deaths are those individuals with a designation of COVID-19 as a cause of death on the death certificate, but where no confirmatory testing was performed.