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While overdose deaths were already increasing in the months preceding the novel coronavirus disease pandemic, the CDC says the latest numbers suggest an acceleration of overdose deaths during the pandemic.
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.Â
Mississippi is set to receive 37,000 first doses of COVID-19 vaccine each week, mostly intended for Mississippi State Department of Health drive-through clinics, putting a long road ahead of the effort to reach herd immunity through vaccination. At that vaccination rate, it would take roughly 57 weeks to fully vaccinate the population of the state, just over a year and a month in all.
With the COVID-19 vaccine now available to many Mississippians, the state now has the opportunity to make the winter spike the last mass outbreak of the disease. The Mississippi Free Press has compiled information from expert sources on the contents, effects and value of the COVID-19 vaccines available to the public.Â
Neither private nor public Mississippi entities such as could require employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine under a new bill.
It does not appear to be much of a priority to CVS and Walgreens to vaccinate long-term care residents, who are our patients and someone else’s mother or father. These large retail pharmacies have had the vaccine since last month, and while improving a little on the volume they have been able to vaccinate, they have been far outpaced by MSDH and physicians statewide.
Like most residents of the state’s long-term care facilities, Adam Booker is part of a distinctly at-risk community in the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet due to extended delays in delivering the vaccine, Booker is not sure when he’ll receive his first shot. The ponderous delay is baffling to him.
Almost 500 unfilled slots for COVID-19 vaccine appointments remained available for today by Sunday evening along with 400 unfilled openings for Tuesday.
Beleaguered hospitals through the Magnolia State have begun taking extreme measures to stay afloat amid a mounting deluge of COVID-19 patients.
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