Reeves urges MS to ‘push gas pedal even harder’ after COVID-19 numbers drop in August
Following a July of soaring COVID-19 cases, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves is relieved to see that the numbers are showing gradual improvement in August.
Reeves appeared upbeat during a media briefing Monday about the progress Mississippi has made against the coronavirus and credited residents for playing a major role in the decreased numbers.
“Your efforts are working,” the first-term governor said. “What you are doing back home is making a tremendous difference. Now is the time for us to continue. Now is the time for us to push the gas pedal even harder.”
After implementing mask mandates on a county-by-county basis, Reeves signed an executive order last week for a statewide mask mandate that will last until Aug. 17. His order was paired with the decision to delay the start of school in some counties that have shown increased spread in recent weeks.
Reeves pointed to the seven-day average for new COVID-19 cases as a key example of the virus pulling back from its high mark in July.
“The seven-day rolling average peaked July 30 at 1,361 cases,” he said. “Today, the number is at 932, a 30 percent drop in new cases on average in a seven-day rolling period.
“Every sacrifice you’ve made, every smart decision you’ve made has been helping. In fact, it has made a difference. The numbers bear that out.”
One stat that Reeves said that the White House coronavirus task force watches closely is the change in the percentage of long-term care facilities with outbreaks of three or more COVID-19 cases over three consecutive weeks.
“That number is up 3.7 percent nationally,” Reeves said. “In Mississippi, it is actually down 57 percent. We are doing our level best to protect our nursing homes.”
The state’s health department reported 476 new coronavirus cases Monday, the lowest single-day count of new COVID-19 cases since July 13.
However, Monday has typically produced smaller counts than usual. Monday’s figures marked the third consecutive Monday of fewer than 700 cases.
Confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations in Mississippi have also hit a low point over the last three weeks at 932. There were another 142 people hospitalized with suspected cases of the coronavirus — another three-week low.
While those stats have dipped, patients in intensive care and on ventilators remain at high levels. There were 328 in ICU and 196 on ventilators as of Sunday.
“Our hospitalization and ICU numbers have stabilized, but there’s still a lot of stress on our healthcare system,” said Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the state’s top health officer.
Overall numbers have dipped slightly, but Dobbs and Reeves encouraged Mississippians not to let up their efforts in helping mitigate the virus.
“Our measures are working,” Reeves said. “We can’t change what we’ve done in the past. We can change what we do going forward.”
This story was originally published August 10, 2020 at 4:03 PM.
