Mississippi may have arrived at the peak of the omicron wave, with cases and hospitalizations pausing a dizzying climb that began with the new year. But the ongoing surge, combined with significant lingering damage to the health-care system, continues to roil the state’s hospitals and intensive-care units.
Omicron continues to wash over Mississippi unrestrained, driving increased case counts and hospitalizations. But data from the University of Mississippi Medical Center support early hopes that the disease may have a milder course of disease in aggregate, but not for every individual.
“COVID hospitalization on the rise and most older Mississippians un-boosted,” State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs wrote on Tuesday. “Booster doses (are) especially important for Mississippians 65+ or with any medical condition.”
Mississippians vaccinated with Moderna or Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 shots may soon become eligible for booster doses, after the companies submitted long-term efficacy data to the Food and Drug Administration.
In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, roughly 15% of Mississippians hospitalized with COVID-19 died, a rate that places Mississippi above the national mortality rate in every period after the initial outbreak in the northeastern United States.
The Mississippi State Department of Health’s Director of Health Protection Jim Craig warned that hospitals across the state are still filled with patients waiting to be transferred out of the emergency room and into intensive care unit beds.
Mississippi’s delta surge has reached a steady sprint, with the state’s seven-day curve arriving at a harsh holding pattern miles above its previous average. The Mississippi State Department of Health announced 4,041 cases today.
An entire Mississippi school district is going virtual after Pearl River Central High School has ordered 40% of its student body to quarantine after just one week of classes. Classes began at the Carriere, Miss., school on Aug. 5 with no mask mandates.
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