‘Major disaster’ looms as Mississippians ignore COVID-19 rules, top health official says
State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs warns that hospitals will be overrun in the fall at the rate COVID-19 is spreading because so many Mississippians fail to follow simple public health guidelines.
Hospitals, and especially intensive care units, are already filling up even though public health officials had hoped novel coronavirus cases would slow down in the summer. They have not.
Instead, COVID-19 cases are beginning to soar in the reopened economy.
“We’re full in so many places,” Dobbs said in an interview Wednesday with the Sun Herald. “We have a stressed health infrastructure, and we’re adding stress on top of stress to the infrastructure.
“We don’t have the staff to take care of the people we have right now, essentially. And now is the slow time. I know it sounds kind of preposterous, although it’s becoming less so as the cases begin to mount.”
“It’s going to be a major stress on the healthcare system, and it could become a healthcare disaster going into the fall.”
Dobbs said people need to wear masks in public, socially distance and avoid large crowds. He doesn’t see that happening.
He believes an executive order mandating masks in retail stores might be needed. They are mandated only in businesses where close contact is unavoidable, such as hair salons and doctor’s offices.
Dobbs said COVID-19 is not the flu, as many assume, and the risks are not being exaggerated.
“I think it’s a little bit dangerous to not take the risks seriously,” he said. “It’s not a little bit dangerous. It’s a lot dangerous if we look at the number of deaths we’ve seen in this country.
“We’ve seen stresses put on our healthcare system. We’ve seen all the people who’ve had to suffer on a ventilator for weeks and weeks just for an opportunity to recover. Sometimes, they don’t.
“I mean, this is the real deal. This is the biggest public health threat we’ve seen in a century.”
“And it’s not going anywhere, and the sad thing is that simple measures will buy us time until we get an effective vaccine.”
Dobbs said he is relying on local leaders — in politics, business and religion — to set an example for their communities. For example, at the MSDH masks are required in public areas and at meetings where social distancing is not possible.
Dobbs pointed out Tuesday on Twitter that Mississippi saw its highest rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations to date. He tweeted a chart that showed hospitalizations at a record of 523 on Tuesday with a 37% increase since April 22. The state also saw a record number of new cases reported Tuesday: 611.
The MSDH reported a total of 23,424 coronavirus cases as Wednesday with deaths for the first time topping 1,000 at 1,011. The state had its first COVID-19 case March 11.
”We need to all be wearing masks when we’re out in public,” he told the Sun Herald. “And I think that a mandatory mask for businesses is something that certainly makes sense. We are in a challenged environment where, unfortunately, there’s been this sort of bizarre resistance to wearing masks — and it’s not really based in any science — that we’re having to sort of educate around.”
Dobbs is making himself available for media interviews as the pace of daily news conferences with Gov. Tate Reeves has slowed.
Other takeways from Dobbs interviews so far:
▪ He told Jackson Free Press reporter Nick Judin that, unless coronavirus spread is brought under control, people could be unable to find hospital beds after car wrecks or ventilators after heart attacks because of COVID-19 care demands.
▪ Camp Shelby might serve as a backup location for convalescent patients so that beds in critical-care hospitals will be available for coronavirus patients.
▪ Dobbs is counting on local leaders to set an example on wearing masks, social distancing and holding down crowd sizes.
“When they all come together with a cohesive sort of support for these simple measures that are going to save people’s lives, it makes all the difference in the world,” he said, “because the community will then better understand the reality we’re looking at, understand the risk we are facing and then better embrace those simple things that we’ve just got to do.”
▪ “If you drive around and look at how younger people are having social gatherings, they’re crowding into bars, it’s just not safe,” the Associated Press quoted Dobbs as saying. “People are not complying, people are not wearing masks. It’s not a joke. Really bad things are going to happen.”
▪ Dobbs said returning to more aggressive measures such as quarantine might help but, again, he said, people simply aren’t following the rules.
This story was originally published June 24, 2020 at 1:14 PM.
