MFP Contributor
Cathryn Warren is a special-education teacher in Lamar County who specializes in behavior modification. She has been back in the classroom since August of last
As Mississippi recovers from the worst winter storm since the mid-1990s, Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley is calling for a re-evaluation of Mississippi’s membership in its regional transmission organization, which manages the transmission, sale and conservation of power across multiple states.
The Mississippi State Department of Health has detected the first confirmed case of a dangerous, much more infectious variant of COVID-19, indicating that the state has limited time before it becomes the dominant strain in the region.
Mississippi’s trans youth may find themselves barred from school sports if the Mississippi House of Representatives confirms a Senate bill, passed in the waning hours of last week’s legislative deadline, that targets trans children, especially trans girls. Both chambers saw similar bills to limit trans rights this session.
The anti-trans bill passed the Senate in the long hours of a Thursday session extended into early Friday morning. A contentious battle over a parallel marijuana program—an alternative to 2020’s successful ballot initiative 65—derailed regular floor debate until late at night.
Dr. Anthony Fauci joined state public-health leadership at Tougaloo College today to address America’s history of medical racism and the barriers to equitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The medical experts spoke in turn over Zoom, with Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases and top coronavirus adviser to President Joe Biden, leading the event with a candid commentary on the medical establishment’s historical treatment of Black Americans.
Medicaid expansion for 300,000 Mississippians died, but a key provision extending postpartum Medicaid coverage for pregnant Mississippians survived. If S.B. 2799 passes the House and the governor’s desk, Mississippians will qualify for Medicaid for a full year after the end of their pregnancies, up from a mere 60 days of coverage currently.
Gov. Tate Reeves announced on Feb. 9 that more Mississippians had received at least one shot of vaccine than have ever contracted COVID-19, the first of many milestones in the long road toward exterminating the virus in the state. Vaccinations have crested at 288,699, and second shots are rapidly following, with 81,790 delivered in total. The state’s population is just under 3 million. Census estimates from 2019 peg the over-18 population, the core demographic for vaccinations, at 2,276,754, leaving just under 2 million Mississippians left to receive shots.
Mississippi may soon have a new class of independent primary-care providers, if the Legislature elects to end a long-standing oversight requirement for its nurse practitioners. The deregulation move would affect more than 4,250 general practitioners across the state, reducing the costs to practice and potentially aiding the state’s widespread primary-care deserts.
Positive signs are emerging in Mississippi’s fight against COVID-19, with a continued decline in case transmission and new hospitalizations paired with an increasingly effective vaccination program. But racial disparity in the delivery of the vaccine remains an issue the state has yet to solve.
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