MS is a COVID-19 ‘red zone.’ Close bars and mandate masks, White House task force says
As one of 18 states in the “red zone” for COVID-19, Misssissippi needs to broaden mask mandates, close bars and gyms in high-risk counties, and increase testing and contact tracing, according to a White House Coronavirus Task Force document first obtained by The Center for Public Integrity.
But Gov. Tate Reeves indicated in a regular news briefing Friday afternoon that he is not willing to go nearly that far.
Instead, he plans to extend a mask mandate in 13 of 52 counties, including Harrison and Jackson, for at least two weeks after the original order expires Monday. He said he might add up to 12 counties with high COVID-19 case counts to the mask mandate and add restrictions on bars, which could include limits on capacity and operating hours.
But Reeves also said his executive orders will do no good unless Mississippians follow them.
The White House document says 52 of the state’s 82 counties are in the “red zone,” including Harrison and Jackson counties on the Gulf Coast. The task force put Mississippi in the red zone under both measures used to determine what states need to take additional public health precautions to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The rate at which Mississippi residents are testing positive for COVID-19 has averaged 15.9% over the last seven days, the sixth highest positivity rate for any state, research from Johns Hopkins University and School of Medicine shows. High positivity rates can indicate too little testing, a rise in cases, or both.
The World Health Organization sets a benchmark of 5% or under for positivity rates.
Mandate COVID protections, epidemiologist says
“We’re going to have to do a better job of it at all levels,” said Dr. Tanjala Purnell, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a Mississippi native who received her undergraduate degree from Tougaloo College. Purnell specializes in epidemiology.
She said masks, more testing and timely test results, and public health education on limiting COVID-19 transmission must be practiced in states with widespread transmission, including Mississippi.
“If we really are truly seeing these additional spikes and we’re not putting adequate protections in place, we’re going to be in trouble if hospitals are telling us, ‘We’re already maxing out our resources,’ “ she said.
She also warned about a fall surge in COVID-19 cases. Reeves and State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs frequently mention in the afternoon news briefing that they fear a fall surge in cases will overwhelm hospitals already filling up because of high COVID-19 caseloads.
“This is the time when we really need to be putting real protections in place,” she said. “We can’t be just making random decisions of ‘Well, we’ll deal with this when it comes along.’ ”
“ . . . It shouldn’t be optional. These things should be mandates. This is not the time to all the sudden throw that away and make it optional because we clearly haven’t moved beyond the point where we are out of danger from this virus.”
White House Coronavirus Task Force advice
The White House Coronavirus Task Force basically reached the same conclusion, at least regarding public-health protocols for Mississippi’s 52 “red zone” counties. Recommendations for residents of these counties include:
▪ Wear a mask and social distance at all times outside the home.
▪ Stay away from bars and gyms.
▪ Reduce public interactions and activities to 25% of normal.
▪ Limit social gatherings to 10 or fewer people.
▪ Order takeout or eat outdoors at restaurants.
Public officials are advised to take the following steps in Mississippi “red zones:”
▪ Close bars and gyms and create more outdoor dining opportunities.
▪ Weekly test all staff members at long-term care facilities.
▪ Mandate masks at all retail and personal service businesses.
▪ Recruit more contact tracers so that all COVID-19 positive individuals are contacted and positive households are tested within 24 hours
▪ Limit social gatherings to 10.
▪ Provide isolation facilities for households unable to individually quarantine.
▪ Step up community education on protective measures.
The task force used two standards for “red zones:” more than 100 new cases per 100,000 over one week and a testing positivity rate of more than 10%, The Center for Public Integrity reported.
Reeves did not mention the task force report on “red zones,” but a journalist asked about it at the news conference. The governor said Mississippi is using a different standard for its county mask mandates. Counties on the list have had 200 new cases within 14 days or have an average of 500 cases per 100,000 people.
Where Mississippi stands with COVID mandates, measures
The MSDH, which Dobbs admits is understaffed, has been overwhelmed with contact tracing as the number of new cases has risen more than 1,000 cases per day for several days in July, including the past two days. He said Friday that the state now has more than 200 contact tracers, with plans to add 100 more.
One case can take a day to trace, according to epidemiologists.
Testing also lags in Mississippi and other states, according to compilations from multiple COVID-19 tracking databases that pull numbers from the MSDH and other state agencies nationwide.
Mississippi relies on private healthcare sources for most COVID-19 tests and results. Test numbers can swing widely from one day to the next, from the hundreds into the thousands. The number of total tests shows Mississippi has tested 12,227 people per 100,000, putting its latest overall ranking at 24, the middle of the pack for 50 states.
Testing guidelines from the state also indicate that testing is still limited to residents with fever or respiratory symptoms or exposure to someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.
Dobbs said Friday that testing supplies are stretched thin because bigger states with high caseloads, including Texas and Florida, absorb resources that otherwise might have been available to Mississippi.
“Every resource is exhaustible, whether it’s a hospital bed, whether it’s PPE (personal protective equipment) or whether it’s testing,” he said. “The solution is not to get infected. And the pathway to that is masks, six feet (apart) and avoid groups. Right?
“And so, forgive my frustration that everybody wants the magic bullet of the contact tracing or testing or the vaccine when the solution is just painfully obvious, in front of us for everyone to see.
“I’m baffled that the simplest of solutions is the one we refuse to broadly adopt.”
Purnell said more widespread testing is critical to lowering the alarming rates at which COVID-19 is spreading.
“It is absolutely important,” she said, “in part because we now know that asymptomatic people can easily spread COVID to others.”
If people choose to ignore public health advice and, as many do, compare COVID-19 to the flu, Purnell said, they need to remember one thing: We have no vaccination against COVID-19, which is not true for strains of the flu.
They should compare COVID-19 to the 1918 flu pandemic, she said:
“The flu wiped out entire populations of people. If they want to compare it to the flu, they need to compare it to what happened to the population prior to advances in medicine and public health. I think we need to remind everybody that the flu wiped out a lot of people because they were in the same scenario that we’re in right now,
“ . . . Medicine and science haven’t caught up so we can adequately protect ourselves from this. If we care about our own lives and the lives of others, we absolutely need to take the steps to protect ourselves and protect others.”
This story was originally published July 18, 2020 at 8:30 AM.
