MFP Contributor
Hours after the worst report of new COVID-19 cases in the pandemic thus far, Gov. Tate Reeves gave Mississippi a full-throated endorsement of vaccinations—but offered inconsistent and hostile messaging on the subject of masks.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center is clearing out space in the bottom floor of a parking garage to prepare for the construction of a field hospital to handle the burden of an overwhelming influx of new COVID-19 patients. With no staff available to work the excess space, the hospital is requesting federal support in the form of medical professionals to bolster an exhausted and overworked care team.
Mississippi’s COVID-19 crisis is reaching levels beyond anything the state has previously seen, with an onslaught of new cases in virtually every setting. Schools find themselves closing as soon as they open as entire districts see their newly relaxed coronavirus strategies buckling under the weight of the delta variant. Hospitals are faring even worse; as of Monday morning, every single staffed intensive-care unit bed in the state is full.
Hinds County Sheriff Lee D. Vance, a four-decade law-enforcement veteran and former chief of the Jackson Police Department, died at his home late Wednesday morning. The Hinds County Sheriff’s Office announced the news on social media, explaining that emergency response found Vance unresponsive. Vance was 63.
The Centers for Disease Control issued a last minute eviction moratorium Tuesday evening, temporarily staving off an immense surge in evictions in the middle of one of the worst waves of coronavirus the U.S. has seen thus far. While the moratorium is targeted only at areas of “substantial or high spread” of the virus, Mississippi’s dangerously climbing infections have put every county in the state in one of those categories, firmly halting all evictions until transmission declines precipitously and remains low, or until Oct. 3.
State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs’ message is, as it so often has been, remarkably simple. Delta is different, categorically more virulent than any strain of COVID-19 that Mississippi has faced thus far.
Mississippians should return to wearing masks indoors regardless of vaccination status, especially in school settings, the Mississippi State Department of Health is warning. The brief relaxation of pandemic restrictions following the widespread availability of the vaccine has come to a close, broken under the weight of the incredibly infectious delta variant of coronavirus.
Regulators and public-works officials agree that Jackson’s water-treatment facilities have completed key improvements ahead of a looming Environmental Protection Agency deadline, but much work remains to bring the capital city’s system into compliance with public health regulations.
MSDH announced 961 new cases of COVID-19, a return to the numbers that overwhelmed the hospital system last winter. Long-term care facility outbreaks rose to 57, the inevitable consequence of rampant community spread.
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.
125 S. Congress Street #1324
Jackson, MS 39201
info@mississippifreepress.org
tips@mississippifreepress.org
events@mississippifreepress.org
601-362-6121
The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).
