A 13-year-old Mississippi girl died Saturday,
a day after testing positive for coronavirus,
Smith County School District Superintendent Nick Hillman reported.
CNN reported that the girl was taken to the hospital on Friday and
died a few hours later while being airlifted to another medical center.
The girl was in the eighth grade at Raleigh High School, in the city of Raleigh, where she was an honor student and played in the musical band.
The Mississippi Department of Health said this
is the fifth COVID-19-related infant death
in the state since the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020.
The school district began requiring the use of masks on August 6, four days after school started.
Until this Tuesday,
104 cases of COVID-19 were reported among students and educational personnel, and 659 people are in quarantine.
[Follow our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic]
The tragedy in Mississippi is yet another sign of the increase in COVID-19 cases among children that, according to a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), has been steady since early July.
Last week there were more than 121,000 childhood infections in the United States, a figure
14 times
higher than the number of cases reported in the week ending June 24, according to AAP data.
Although this coincides with an increase in the rate of cases in all ages in the United States since early summer, the proportion of cases in children has increased significantly coinciding with the return to school.
The AAP indicates that
cases in children represented 18% of the country's total last week, compared to 14.4% on average since the start of the pandemic.
Fauci defends the use of the mask in schools and says that there will soon be a vaccine for children under 11 years old
Aug. 12, 202103: 00
Health authorities expected that a critical threshold of the population would be vaccinated in time to control infections during the new school year,
but only 51% of the population is fully vaccinated
and cases have increased again.
Children under the age of 12 cannot yet be vaccinated.
Infections from the more transmissible delta variant now account for nearly 99% of cases in the United States, and
the situation is becoming especially dangerous for children,
experts say.
Against this, health experts have advocated that children wear masks (for now the only protection measure for them) at school, but some Republican governors have tried to prohibit that requirement.
Thousands of students in quarantine in the United States
In Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has opposed the mandatory use of masks in schools, at least 3,143 students and
1,371 employees have tested positive for COVID-19, and at least another 11,416 students and staff have been placed. quarantined
or isolated.
In Mississippi, where the 13-year-old girl died and where Governor Tate Reeves has called the new guidelines on the use of masks from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English),
20,000 students are quarantined statewide
, reports USA Today.
[Pediatricians ask that all children wear a mask in schools even if they are vaccinated]
In New Orleans, more than 3,000 students and employees have been quarantined in the city's public school district due to COVID-19 cases in the last week.
They represent
6% of the district's students and teachers.
In New Orleans, students began the school year on August 12 and are required to wear masks to school.
["It's frightening". Children's hospitals are filling up due to the increase in COVID-19 cases among children]
Likewise, about
750 students and 40 staff members are in quarantine
at the New Albany Floyd County Consolidated School Corp, in Indiana, after having tested positive or having been in contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.