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Hours after the worst report of new cases of COVID-19 in the pandemic to date, Governor Tate Reeves gave Mississippi full approval of the vaccinations, but offered inconsistent and hostile messages about the masks.
“I want to be clear,” the governor said at a Friday afternoon press conference, “I was vaccinated. My mother was vaccinated. My father was vaccinated. My grandmother was vaccinated. I believe vaccines are safe, effective and the best tool to beat the virus. ”
But subsequently, Reeves went further than simply rejecting calls for mask warrants, which the Mississippi State Medical Association and the Mississippi Association of Educators requested, and the Centers for Disease Control and the Mississippi State Department of Health strongly encouraged.
Drawing on his anti-mask remarks at Neshoba County Fair on August 29, the governor questioned the value of the masks for the fully vaccinated on Friday, hesitating at times between his earlier position that neither the unmasked nor the masked should be humiliated and outrage at any member of the press who contradicted him.
“If you really want to point out virtue, why are you in this room?” Why don’t you go home and lock yourself in? Reeves asked Bobby Harrison of Mississippi Today, after Harrison asked him about his stance on post-vaccination masking, given the possibility of groundbreaking infections. The governor has no training in medicine or health care; he holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Millsaps College.
Behind him, to Reeves’ left, loomed his own public health officer, Dr Thomas Dobbs, himself in mask and eager to defend the interest of continuing to take additional preventive measures after vaccination. Dobbs is an epidemiologist with a doctorate in medicine and a master’s degree in public health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“Delta is not going to last forever,” Dobbs said at the briefing. “I’ll just tell you what I’m doing: I’m vaccinated: I wear a mask in public. I avoid social gatherings indoors. If I hang out (with friends), we hang out outside… and I’m not going to go to a bar or sit with other people and breathe the indoor air.
The CDC recommends wearing the mask indoors in part because of the delta variant’s incredibly high viral load, which is potent enough to risk transmission even from vaccinated sources. All available evidence, including MSDH’s tracking of thousands of Mississippi cases, hospitalizations and deaths, suggests the vaccine offers potent protection against all three, but groundbreaking infections are possible.
Reeves and Dobbs never traded verbal blows, maintaining the polite difference of opinion that has characterized their relationship throughout the pandemic.
“Dr. Dobbs and I have been working closely together for a year and a half. And I have told him every time we have met, it’s OK to disagree with me. not exactly agree with me, ”Reeves said.
But the governor found it easy enough to wrestle with the press in response to security issues. “You just want to chat with me,” he laughed. “I understand. I know you all want to argue with me.
‘At or near our peak’
The worldly quarrels over the press conference took place just a few miles from the The newly operational field hospital of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, filling up as the governor spoke with overwhelmed patients. A team under the direction of the US Department of Health and Human Services, deployed to deal with the staff shortage accompanying the hospital’s bed shortage, is there to accommodate the flood.
The Delta wave rises, groping for a last peak constantly. The MSDH announced 5,032 new cases on Friday, the third consecutive record. Prior to these past few days, a day of 3,000 cases was a relic of the dramatic winter surge, before vaccination, in the nationwide crash that followed countless misguided holiday gatherings.
State hospitals are already beyond their capacity under the burden of the Delta. The dizzying increase in cases at the end of the week promises to weigh them down further. Reeves acknowledged the seriousness of the crisis during his press conference, though his language seemed to systematically reduce the unique and pressing danger of the outbreak.
“We are today at or near our peak levels compared to previous increases in hospital admissions and intensive care patients,” Reeves said. The statement was less out of step with the numbers than the governor’s statement earlier in the week, when he falsely compared the current all-time high with August.
In truth, the state had already surpassed all previous COVID-19 milestones – the tents under Garage B on the UMMC campus could attest to that. And these hospitalizations are the result of earlier transmission; the burden of the state’s three-day streak of record numbers remains to be seen.
The governor has repeatedly challenged the Centers for Disease Control for its own inconsistencies, saying a lack of certainty threatened the vaccination effort. “I personally think the CDC and its constantly evolving mask guidelines have actually been harmful,” Reeves said.
Yet Reeves’ advice has also changed, and towards less protection of the Mississippians. In 2020, the governor remained firm on his decision to issue a statewide mask warrant for schools, as part of a policy that made in-person classes a priority. He issued a series of county-level mask warrants, assuring the press and the public that his piecemeal orders followed science in their specificity and scope.
Now the governor has made it clear that Mississippi will not revert to Orders in Council under any circumstances.
“Based on the data I have seen, I have no intention of issuing a statewide mask warrant to our schools,” he told the Mississippi Free Press. “Now if you have a kid and you want him to wear a mask by any means, I think you should let him wear a mask.”
Federal aid to come
Federal aid is coming to Mississippi and will continue to arrive. On August 12, Reeves extended the Mississippi state of emergency for an additional 30 days, a move that public health officials say may be needed to secure federal help for the ongoing delta push.
“This extension will facilitate the process of mobilizing additional resources for our response … allow our health care system to continue to transfer patients to hospitals where treatment is available, ensure expanded access to telemedicine and keep options open for health care. ‘use of the great men and women of the MS National Guard,’ Reeves explained on social media Thursday.
But help with an overwhelming influx of new hospital patients will likely be the limit on Reeves’ efforts based on his comments on Friday.
“We certainly continue to encourage our fellow Mississippi people to take the necessary precautions,” Reeves told the Mississippi Free Press during the briefing. “We’re not going to have a statewide mask mandate. We’re not going to have top-down, state-wide intervention at this time. “
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