MFP Contributor
“I’m committed to the Mississippi Free Press because this is an outlet trying to do it all. We strive for deep, timely reporting from well-supported journalists with a real dedication to Mississippi, and we are doing it without paywalls. It’s not an easy path. There aren’t any shortcuts. And most of us are too stubborn to take them anyway,” reporter Nick Judin writes.
Mississippi is now in the early stages of the predicted surge of the omicron variant of coronavirus, with the Mississippi State Department of Health announcing 7,058 new cases of COVID-19 over the long Christmas holiday.
Omicron continues its march across the nation, promising another winter of high transmission of COVID-19. But further ahead in 2022, more robust treatments for the virus are rekindling hopes that the world may have better tools to fight the pandemic soon.
The omicron variant of COVID-19 is spreading rapidly across the U.S., and is driving transmission in states neighboring Mississippi, likely to outcompete the remains of delta in the state after beginning community transmission.
Mississippi’s Joint Redistricting Committee has released its recommendations for the state’s four new congressional districts, and the result could be a sprawling District 2 for the only Democratic and only Black representative, Bennie Thompson, in a state that is 38% Black.
Mississippi thus far has avoided the dramatic uptick in new cases that countries like the United Kingdom and South Africa have faced from the omicron variant of coronavirus, but state health leadership is encouraging residents to remain vigilant after detecting the variant in Mississippi.
Laboratory studies of the omicron variant of COVID-19 from multiple sources reveal a dramatic decrease in neutralizing activity from prior infection with earlier variants and the available vaccines. The results provide a challenging prospect for the future of the pandemic if the variant becomes dominant, and strongly encourage a booster dose for all adults, regardless of health conditions.
The Mississippi State Department of Health has detected the first case of the omicron variant of COVID-19 in Mississippi. Health officials discovered the variant in a fully vaccinated individual who returned to Mississippi from New York, where earlier cases of the variant have been reported, but MSDH could not confirm where the infected individual acquired the virus.
The potential of immune evasive properties of omicron, Dr. Eric Topol says, are why it is “vital that everyone with an acquired infection of COVID gets additional protection with at least one shot, if not two.”
Mississippi Journalism and Education Group is a a 501(c)(3) nonprofit media organization (EIN 85-1403937) for the state, devoted to going beyond partisanship and publishing solutions journalism for the Magnolia State and all of its people.
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