With COVID-19 patients overflowing at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, including in its pediatric center, hospital leaders are warning that the medical system statewide could be on the verge of failing without drastic intervention. Two days ago, Mississippi health officials announced that zero intensive-care beds remained available in hospitals statewide.
Employees, students and contractors at the University of Mississippi Medical Center have a choice ahead of them: Get the COVID-19 vaccine or find somewhere else to work. The state’s largest hospital system will be mandating the vaccine in phases, and once the emergency use authorization for the vaccine is lifted, it will be mandatory.
As Gov. Tate Reeves lifted mask mandates on March 3, 2021, some cities like Hattiesburg extended their rules. Others, including Oxford, did not. Meantime, local businesses hoped to recoup lost business despite ongoing risks.
Exhausted health-care workers faced a worsening situation at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson today as the state’s largest hospitals continued to admit patients without enough beds to place them in.
Mississippi reached a new high for COVID-19 hospitalizations, the State Department of Health reported this morning. Hospitals reported 1,008 patients with the virus and another 238 with suspected infections.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves lashed out today at “so-called experts” in the medical field as he continued to defy their pleas for him to reissue a statewide mask mandate.
“I think that from the standpoint of myself and my own opinion and the leadership here at the medical center, we very much believe we should have a statewide mask mandate,” Dr. LouAnn Woodward said today
Mississippi public schools have confirmed 199 cases among students and 245 among teachers, Dobbs said, and school districts have ordered 2,035 students and 589 teachers to quarantine at home for two weeks after possible exposure to COVID-19. Schools in 71 of Mississippi’s 82 counties have reported cases, the state health officer said.
Gulfport High School sent about 100 students home today to quarantine “out of an abundance of caution” after a teacher developed coronavirus-like symptoms, Sandy East, the school’s public relations director, told the Mississippi Free Press.
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