COVID-19 Cases Rise in Oxford, But Not by Much

New cases of COVID-19 rose slightly last week, up from 56 two weeks ago to 87 new cases in the last seven days.

The Oxford School District’s latest report of new cases from Oct. 19-25 shows 10 new cases with nine being high school students and one Bramlett Elementary student. Three teachers and 21 students in the district are currently in quarantine due to contract tracing.

Students who test positive and are doing online school are not included in the weekly counts on the district’s website.

Lafayette County School District had not updated its weekly report as of Monday afternoon.

The University of Mississippi has reported a downward trend of positive cases of COVID-19 recently.

On Monday, the school reported 25 new cases in the last seven days, up from the week prior where there were 19 new cases. There are currently 27 active cases on campus with three students in isolation and one in quarantine.

There have been 830 cases at Ole Miss since August.

The majority of Oxford’s new cases continue to be people in the 18 to 24-year-old age group.

Since many students are here in Oxford but live elsewhere full-time, those positive cases are often reported to their hometown and state, so it is unclear how many of UM’s cases are included in the MSDH’s reported cases for Lafayette County.

Since March, there have been 2,513 cases in Lafayette County. There have been 43 deaths in the county associated with the virus – 29 being patients in a long-term care facility.

Close to 1,346 people from Lafayette County who tested positive are white, about 400 were black and the rest are listed as either “unknown” or “other.”

As of Sunday, there were about 115 active (less than 14 days since diagnosis) cases in Lafayette County, up from 81 seven days ago.