The Mississippi State Department of Health announced 641 new cases of COVID-19 today, the highest single-day report of new cases since Mar. 13, 2021, the end of the national surge from the winter holidays.
The Mississippi State Department of Health reported 427 new COVID-19 cases for July 7—the most for any one day since March 13. After a months-long plateau, novel coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are once again rising in the Magnolia State after the more contagious Delta variant became the state’s dominant strain last month.
As the Delta variant begins to race through the United States, the White House Coronavirus Task Force is warning that unvaccinated populations are especially at risk from the virulent new strain of COVID-19. That includes young adults who previously displayed a healthy resistance to the worst effects of the virus.
President Joe Biden has declared a vaccination “National Month of Action” to get the U.S. to herd immunity against COVID-19, alongside a slew of public health initiatives to close the remaining vaccine gap in the country.
Adolescents aged 12 to 15 are now approved for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination, which expands access to the two-shot mRNA vaccine to more than 160,000 young Mississippians, after the Centers for Disease Control Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices formally approved the decision on Wednesday.
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.
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.
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.
The Mississippi State Department of Health says there is no evidence that a Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine caused a St. Martin, Miss., man to suffer a stroke. Still, a plethora of Mississippi television stations, owned by Gray Television in Atlanta, and at least one daily newspaper pushed that narrative without talking to a single health expert before publication.
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