COVID-19 cases continue to increase in Joplin as we get further from the Thanksgiving holiday. For the past month, the city has been average between 40 and 45 new COVID cases per day. The slowing of COVID cases started the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It’s likely that people who would have been tested even if they weren’t showing symptoms were preparing or traveling for the holiday. For the three days prior to yesterday, the Joplin Health Department reported lower than average new case numbers. On Monday, the department reported 47 new cases to bring the total of active cases in the city to 325. The city is approaching 3 weeks since the implantation of their latest mask mandate, which runs through February of 2021.  The COVID-19 death toll in Joplin remains at 67.