Mississippi has experienced a significant rise in COVID-19 cases during the last month. The increase has raised an alarm with state leadership beginnng to discuss possible solutions to ensure that the health care industry is not over run.
According to the Missisippi Department of Health, over a one week period from June 29 through July 5, Simpson County saw an increase of 49 new cases, bringing the county’s cases to date to 323. This reflected an 18 percent change making Simpson County one of the high incidence counties in the state. To date, three Simpson County residents have died due to complications from COVID-19.
Governor Tate Reeves held a coronavirus briefing at the Governor’s Mansion where he announced that several legislators had tested positive for the virus, and that he had been in contact with one of these individuals. This prompted Reeves to self-isolate and get tested. He and his family tested negative for COVID-19. He said, “This is a reminder to all of us that this virus is very contagious, it is out in every one of our communities and that’s why it’s extremely important that all of us pay attention, that we act smart, and do the little things.” Reeves urged everyone to continue to protect themselves and their neighbors and be careful.
He affirmed that the last few weeks the state have reported a high number of cases. The fact that the number of cases has been much higher, leadership has been closely monitoring the hospitalization rate closely. Reeves said if the number of new cases, hospitalizations and ICU cases continue to increase then his office is willing and able to take action to decompress the health care system. Reeves stated the goal was never to stop the virus, but to slow the spread of the virus to protect the health care system. This will ensure that beds are available for COVID-19 patients, and they are able to be treated. Reeves said, “Our goal is to ensure that every single Mississippian that can get better with quality care receives that quality care.”
The rise in cases has paused the reopening of the economy. Reeves said he hoped by July 1 to do away with all coronavirus related executive orders. In May the state showed a steady decline in new cases, and this trend continued into the early days of June. However the recent spike in cases has caused for the reevaluation of doing away with executive orders, and delaying the reopening.
Reeves said it is important to continue to be vigilant in the fight against COVID-19. He said, “If you watch cable news there was a period of time in late May and early June, you wouldn’t have even known there was a coronavirus, but I’m here to tell you it’s still in our communities and still in our state.”
Reeves urged citizens to continue to do their part and wear masks and practice social distancing. He stated for the state to get back to normal everyone must continue to do the little things so the state will not return to a lockdown situation. Reeves said, “It will be horrible for us as a state economically for us to go back to a scenario where we are actually shutting down businesses. That is something I have no desire to have to do, but I will do everything in my power to protect not only the lively hood of all Mississippians, but also the lives of all Mississippians.” Reeves said the state has already lost over 1,000 people to the coronavirus. Since March 11, there have been 1,114 deaths in MS due to COVID-19. On the opposite end of spectrum, approximately 22,167 people have been presumably recovered from the virus.
Reeves expressed concerns with the notion that the increase of cases can be attributed to families doing barbecues on Memorial Day weekend and over the recent Independence Day weekend. He said it is frustrating that those in the national media wrote off the fact that thousands of individuals were marching in protest. The protest stemmed from the untimely death of George Floyd by a police officer in Minnesota. The protest called for an end to police brutality. Reeves said, “Before we had a huge increase in cases, we literally had thousands and thousands and thousands of individuals marching in protest virtually in every city around this country. There are those in the national media who would have you believe that had absolutely no impact on the rising number of cases.” Reeves suggested common sense would say otherwise and he believes the spike in cases around the country should be linked to the protests.
He also criticized the press for not talking about the coronavirus for weeks, but instead talking about other things going on in the country related to the protests. Reeves believes this led to citizens letting their guard down in terms of taking precautions against COVID-19. He said, “Not only did they put their guard down because they were not hearing about it, but in many instances it was the hypocrisy of the media saying we shouldn’t be doing certain things but these large protest are ok because we believe in their political ideology.”
Reeves said this led to many people writing the virus off as a hoax. He urged everyone to continue to protect themselves and their neighbors. He said , “This virus is real, and it’s dangerous.”
