Nearly 80 new school COVID cases before break

Christmas break 2020 will be remembered for many DeSoto County School District (DCS) students as being the year they were in quarantine for COVID-19, with the most recent statistics from the district bearing the fact out. 

For the final week of the 2020 portion of the school year, 78 new cases of coronavirus were reported among the district’s student population and there were 662 new quarantines for the week ending Dec. 18. That’s according to a report found on the district’s website this week.  

Nine of the new cases were found at Hernando Middle School, where there were also 98 new quarantines reported. Eight of the new cases came from Lake Cormorant High School.  

Southaven Middle School had 122 new quarantines among its students just before Christmas break, the report said. That was the most number of new quarantines among any of the DCS schools, with Hernando Middle next with its 98 new quarantines.  

Seven district schools did not report new cases last week and an equal number of schools had no new quarantines.  

DCS also reported 47 school staff members came down with new positive COVID-19 tests during the past week.  

The report points out weekly that the numbers do not include student positive cases quarantined by the state health department for situations that are not school-related, and private schools, such as St. Thomas School and Northpoint Christian School, are not part of the report.  

On Wednesday, the Mississippi State Department of Health reported one new COVID-19 related death in DeSoto County for a total of 129 deaths related to the virus in the county. There have now been 13,674 positive cases in DeSoto County, an increase of 189 from Tuesday’s update.

The complete update was reported from the Mississippi State Department of Health.

The weekly report from DeSoto County Schools is found below.