Gov. Tate Reeves is not quite ready to call a special session to establish a medical marijuana program for Mississippi, but a session is likely soon.
A tale of two school districts is playing out in and around the Mississippi capital city. As Jackson Public Schools become one of the first in the state to mandate COVID-19 vaccines or weekly testing for employees, students in the nearby suburban Rankin County School District will no longer be required to wear masks.
Dr. John Witcher, a Yazoo City emergency-room physician and general practitioner, has treated hundreds of COVID-19 patients over the past year. He is also unvaccinated for the virus and the leader of a small band of Mississippi health-care workers in their campaign against vaccine mandates under the umbrella of “Mississippi Against Vaccine Mandates.”
More Mississippians have now died from COVID-19 than died during the entirety of the Great Influenza pandemic that lasted from 1918 to 1919. The Mississippi State Department of Health reports that it has now confirmed at least 9,270 coronavirus deaths in the state since the novel coronavirus arrived in spring 2020.
Mississippi now leads the nation in COVID-19 deaths per 100,000, usurping New Jersey, an early pandemic hotspot that until last week had held the title for 15 months. The Magnolia State claimed the unenviable title following a month in which the delta variant surge pushed hospitals to the point of collapse with coronavirus patient levels at all-time highs for both children and adults.
More K-12 students in Mississippi have now tested positive for COVID-19 since going back to school last month than did so during the entirety of the previous school year, an examination of Mississippi State Department of Health data reveals.
House and Senate Republican lawmakers are split on how to eliminate the state income tax, a rift that has kept the tax-debate standstill, with prevailing forces in the state leadership leaning heavily toward abolishing the income tax. Still, no proposal that satisfies all players has yet to emerge from the discussion, which follows a failed attempt to push the tax cut through the 2021 legislative session.
A powerful storm surge is flooding the Mississippi Gulf Coast as Hurricane Ida, a category 4 storm with winds speed of about 150 miles per hour, made landfall in Port Fourchon, La., this morning at 11:55 a.m. central standard time.
Mississippi has now surpassed the state of New York, the nation’s original pandemic hotspot, in total COVID-19 deaths per 100,000. The only state where the pandemic has proven deadlier than the Magnolia State is New Jersey.
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