In a court filing, the Biden administration is warning that the Mississippi-backed lawsuit asking courts to block enforcement of the president’s employer COVID-19 vaccine mandate “would likely cost dozens or even hundreds of lives per day.”
The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees voted today to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for all employees at state universities that receive federal contracts except those who fall under limited exempt categories.
Speaking to dozens of anti-vaccine demonstrators spread out across the Sillers Pedestrian Mall near the Mississippi Capitol Building on Saturday, one of the state’s top elected officials declared that the fight over COVID-19 vaccines represents a pivotal moment in the nation’s history.
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.”
The board that oversees Mississippi’s universities and colleges rejected calls for campus vaccine mandates this afternoon, with seven of the board’s nine members agreeing only to “strongly encourage” vaccines during a socially distanced Zoom meeting.
The University of Mississippi Faculty Senate is considering a resolution calling on administrators to require that all eligible students, faculty and staff get vaccinated for COVID-19. At an extraordinary UM Faculty Senate meeting tonight, which the Mississippi Free Press listened in on, members discussed a resolution that cites “an obligation to protect the life, health and wellbeing of its students, faculty, staff, and surrounding communities” in Oxford.
The Food and Drug Administration has granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine. Mississippi now expects the first of many vaccine mandates to come for health-care workers.
Mississippi has once again added more cases in one day than any other in the pandemic, now leading the world in rampant transmission of the virus. In response, the University of Mississippi Medical Center has moved up its timeline to ensure its entire workforce is vaccinated.
MSDH announced 961 new cases of COVID-19, a return to the numbers that overwhelmed the hospital system last winter. Long-term care facility outbreaks rose to 57, the inevitable consequence of rampant community spread.
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