About 15% of all Mississippi K-12 students have now been quarantined since the start of the year either for testing positive for COVID-19 or due to known exposures. That figure, based on new data from the Mississippi State Department of Health, includes 65,525 students who have been ordered to isolate in the weeks since classes began.
The latest report, which includes figures from 835 schools in 75 counties, shows that the state identified 5,763 new cases among students for the week of Aug. 16-20 and ordered 28,990 of them to quarantine for exposure, with both figures up since the prior week.
The total number of student cases identified this month so far reached 11,766 by the end of last week. At the same point in August 2020, schools had confirmed just 533 cases among students. For the entirety of the fall 2020 semester, Mississippi’s schools confirmed just 7,212 cases among students. About 443,000 students are enrolled in Mississippi’s public-school system.
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