Mississippi state health officials confirmed Wednesday that a recent death of a child in the state was attributed to the COVID-19 coronavirus. It was the first confirmed COVID death of a child in Mississippi.

“We are sad to report the death of a healthy child between the ages of 1 and 5 years old today,” Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said Wednesday. “This child died of coronavirus and the MSI, multi-system inflammatory syndrome over the past couple of weeks.

“(A) very sad and a powerful reminder that even though most people get over it just fine, even young, healthy people can die from it and everything that we do to prevent transmission in the community is an act of love that prevents transmission to others and lead to serious outcomes,” Dobbs said.

The state has confirmed COVID-19 in 2,147 cases in children under the age of 5, but this was the first death confirmed to be tied directly to COVID-19 in the state.

Dobbs urged Mississippians to keep up what he called the “simple things” – social distancing, wearing masks in public and avoiding crowds.

“Please, let’s not repeated the errors from Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, we had massive increases in cases and deaths because we got carried away,” he said. “This is not the time to be having big family gatherings or big social gatherings.”