Our Stories on COVID-19
In February 2021, I received a divination—I was told that I need to open myself to friendship and community and that, specifically, I should seek the friendship of other Black women. A close friend reminded me of this by reassuring me it would be easy for me to make new friends in Memphis, Tenn., where my wife and I decided to plant roots.
Unemployed Mississippians will no longer be eligible for $300 per week in federal COVID-19 unemployment benefits after Gov. Tate Reeves announced today that Mississippi will opt out next month.
The State of Mississippi can help small business owners address its lack-of-labor problem, and it fits well with Gov. Reeves’ crusade to reduce barriers to work in Mississippi. It’s time for Mississippi to establish sectoral councils, Michael Foley writes in this essay.
On the penultimate day of the Confederate Heritage Month, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves made a bold declaration: “There is not systemic racism in America.” The announcement, if it were true, could come as a relief to the 38% of Mississippians who are Black. But around 16% of those residents will not have the opportunity to express their gratitude to the governor in the next election because they are systematically disenfranchised due to an 1890 Jim Crow felony voting law.
Gov. Tate Reeves put an end to all pandemic guidelines outside of K-12 schools, banking on heavily depressed case counts and increasing vaccinations to protect Mississippians this summer.
Gov. Tate Reeves is rushing to declare victory in the fight against COVID-19 in Mississippi for the third time. His apparent determination to lift the last social restrictions on April 30 runs the real risk of a Final Wave in May and June, which will likely prolong the pandemic well into the summer. That last 10% would mean another 30,000 new infections and approximately 750 deaths. Such should not be considered “acceptable” or merely “manageable.”
Two weeks after a temporary, nationwide halt on the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, the Mississippi State Department of Health is encouraging health-care providers to continue delivering the single-shot vaccine, with an advisory for women under 50 to consider using Pfizer or Moderna’s formulation.
Mississippi has seen a dramatic slowdown in its sprint to COVID-19 herd immunity. Residents of the Magnolia State have been getting vaccinated at a rapidly decreasing rate, with each consecutive week in April showing double-digit declines.
As Mississippi’s looks ahead to the long, difficult task of converting declining transmission of the virus into a final victory over COVID-19, emerging scientific evidence is piling up in support of airborne transmission as a significant—and perhaps primary mode of infection for the virus, experts say.
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