Panola County recorded 221 new positive coronavirus tests in the past week and 10 additional deaths. As of Monday, Dec. 14, the Mississippi State Department of Health data said the county has 2,754 residents who have contracted Covid-19 since record keeping began March 11.

The state said 67 Panola residents have died since that time.

Statewide, some 183,300 Mississippians have had coronavirus with 4,252 of the cases proving fatal.

Of those numbers, 8,453 cases have been in long term care facilities, and 1,577 of the deaths have been in those establishments. In Panola County, MSDH said there have been 76 long term care facility infections and 13 deaths.

Monday also marked the eighth day in December with more than 2,000 new infections being reported, making the seven day average 2,196 per day.

Taking the median seven-day rate for the month of December (1,938 cases per day), Mississippi will top 200,000 cases on Christmas Eve. Using the same rate, the state is on pace for 60.078 just in December.

The rise in cases in Mississippi is part of a trend in new infections sweeping the nation. According to a New York Times database, at least 201,073 new cases and at least 1,678 coronavirus-related deaths were reported in the U.S. Tuesday. In the past seven days, there has been an average of 209,600 per day, an increase of 31 percent from the average two weeks ago.

Residents between the ages of 25 and 39 represent the largest portion of the infected population in the state, with 40,707 cases reported Tuesday. Among patients under the age of 18, children between the ages of 11-17 have the highest infection rate, with 13,813 cases identified so far. The 65 and older age group has the highest total number of deaths with 3,233 reported.

South Panola School District has continued to keep the number of students and staff required to quarantine because of positive tests, or because of close contact, relatively low, especially when compared to neighboring counties and other districts around the state.

For the week of Dec. 7-11, the mandatory report sent from the school district to the MSDH show that nine students and two staff members tested positive for Covid-19.

Students required to quarantine at each school were: BES (37), BIS (7), BMS (16), BJHS (12), SPHS (103), and Pope (14). Also, nine total staff members went into quarantine status last week.