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Mississippi currently has the highest COVID-19 hospitalization rate in the nation, at 31 percent, according to states’ health department data gathered by The COVID Tracking Project.

Based on numbers the state health department released Wednesday, 333 patients have been hospitalized so far and 22 people have died. Since the state started regularly updating hospitalization rates, Mississippi has consistently remained among the top three states of about 40 states consistently reporting hospitalization data. As of Wednesday, Oklahoma and South Carolina rank just behind Mississippi, at 30 and 27 percent, respectively.

Mississippi also has the 14th most hospitalizations in the nation, data show.

Gov. Tate Reeves issued a shelter-in-place order for the entire state Wednesday, saying the order is the best way to alleviate strain on the health care system and give the state time to prepare for coming COVID patients.

State health officer Thomas Dobbs echoed Reeves, reiterating gatherings are the cause of most known cases. “We need to use this tool (shelter-in-place) to slow things down such that we can process patients through the system safely to provide all patients what they need,” Dobbs said. He added that the order is meant to prevent overburdening the system now so the state can “adequately resource the health care system” for current and future patients. “It’s the right time,” he said.

State and commercial labs running tests in Mississippi are prioritizing testing for hospitalized patients and those with severe symptoms. That could partially explain the high rate, if tests are clustered among patients already in the hospital and those who are most sick,or who are likely to be.

The state has run 4,785 tests as of March 31, and officials estimate private labs have run about the same. Commercial lab testing data and more detailed statewide data showing county or demographic information for individual tests has not been provided.

Testing has been ramping up with state-sponsored free pop-up testing tents, as well as at clinics around the state, and officials warn that identified cases will only grow as the number of tests do.

A model from the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projects that total deaths in Mississippi will not peak until May 28, with 1,098 deaths total.