Pfizer and BioNTech have asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve their COVID-19 vaccine for use in children ages 5 to 11, Pfizer announced this morning. If the FDA approves an emergency use authorization, it would be the first time a COVID-19 vaccine was available for children younger than 12.
Mississippi’s intensive-care units are finally seeing some relief from the waning delta-variant surge. With the number of new cases of COVID-19 shrinking, the state’s hospital system is stepping back from the worst period of the pandemic so far.
Booster doses are now available for many vaccinated Mississippians, providing an extra barrier against transmission of the virus for those vaccinated at the beginning of the year. But health-care professionals are also encouraging Mississippians to remember their flu shots as flu season approaches.
Landon Woodson had “always been healthy until Covid,” his mother insisted in a Sept. 23 Facebook post. But two days later, the North Pontotoc High School football player died of COVID-19 in a Memphis Children’s Hospital after suffering cardiac arrest, she wrote.
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.”
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s baseless claims about unvaccinated Black people being the bearers of COVID-19 were not surprising at all. This is yet another instance of people, and not just elected officials, using Black folks as scapegoats for the failures of the state, Mississippi NAACP President Corey Wiggins writes
An 89% majority of the University of Mississippi Faculty Senate voted this evening in favor of a resolution urging the administration to implement a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all students, faculty and staff.
In late August, with the virus reaching its newest peak in Mississippi, Dr. Eric Topol identified the Magnolia State as the global hotspot of COVID-19, reflecting the rampaging spread of the virus. That same day, Topol joined the Mississippi Free Press for an interview on the state of the pandemic—and what comes next.
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.
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