More than 20,000 students enrolled in Mississippi schools are in quarantine for COVID-19 exposure after the first week of school, NBC News reports.
The number accounts for about 5% of the state's total public school population, state figures show.
Classes began in Mississippi on Aug. 9, and with the week ending on Friday, 20,334 were in quarantine, according to State Health Department data.
A total of 4,521 students contracted coronavirus that week, making the total who have tested positive since the beginning of August 5,933. Also, 948 teachers and staff tested positive from Aug. 9 to Friday, for a total of 1,496 total for the month.
At the end of the week, 1,463 teachers and staff were in quarantine.
Mississippi has been hit particularly hard as the delta variant of COVID-19 sweeps across the country. About 34% of the state's residents are fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.
Dr. Paul Byers, the state epidemiologist, described the number of students in quarantine as "dramatic" when speaking to reporters on Wednesday.
"When you look at a number like 20,000 students that are on quarantine in any given week, that exceeds what we've experienced ... when we were at our previous peak for the impact on the schools," Byers said.
At least 29 schools have decided to "go virtual for a short time in order to interrupt transmission," he added.
Infection rates for those aged 5 to 17 have risen sharply, he said, and children aged 6 to 10 represent many of the new cases.
"This will translate to potentially more hospitalizations of children under the age of 18. And unfortunately, we may see additional deaths," Byers said.
He urged vaccinations for children 12 and older and their parents as the best protection against the virus. The vaccines so far have been approved only for those 12 and older.
A teen died over the weekend from COVID complications, the fifth minor to die from the virus in the state, he added.
Eighth-grader Mkayla Robinson, 13, died Saturday, her aunt, Megan Reed, told NBC.
"I found out Friday it was a positive test. And then on Saturday, she passed. She was healthy, perfectly healthy," Reed said.
"She wanted to attend Harvard," Reed said. "She was very smart, very caring, very kind. She was a nurturer. ... It's devastating to all of us."
In a Facebook post from the Raleigh High School Lion Pride band, she was called "the perfect student."
"Every teacher loved her and wanted 30 more just like her," the post said. "Please pray for Raleigh Junior High, the band, and especially the family as they deal with this."
Unlike earlier surges, this wave is predominantly affecting younger, unvaccinated people just as classes are resuming. More children than ever have been hospitalized.
''Instead of seeing women bury their parents, we’re seeing women bury their children,'' Mississippi's state wealth officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, said Tuesday afternoon while visiting a field hospital being set up by Samaritan's Purse. "It’s a sad and heartbreaking thing.''
More than 392,300 people have tested positive for the virus since the start of the pandemic in Mississippi, a state of about 3 million people. At least 7,880 have died since.
On July 27, some 726 people were hospitalized with coronavirus. By Aug. 16, that figure stood at 1,623.
Patients were waiting in hallways and emergency rooms, with no beds and no staff to immediately tend to them.
The state called on the federal government for help, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services deployed a team of three dozen physicians, nurses and respiratory therapists last week to set up the first emergency field hospital. That site, in another parking lot at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, is serving 20 patients.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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