‘COVID is now the third leading cause of death in America,’ MS health officer says
“COVID is now the third leading cause of death in America,” State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said Friday during a weekly talk with the Mississippi State Medical Association.
It’s second only to heart disease and cancer since March.
The Magnolia State is closing in on 1,000 deaths in December alone, and there are higher and higher records in hospitalizations and patients in intensive-care units.
“We have failed to protect our healthcare resources,” he said. That means when ICUs and hospitals fill up, “there’s just not gonna be access to care.”
He stressed the danger from people gathering over the holidays.
“It’s going to be bad in Mississippi, but it doesn’t have to be bad in your family,” he said.
It’s not like you’ll never be able to have Christmas dinner with your family again, said MSMA Board President Dr. Mark Horne. “We’re really just talking about a short delay.”
But it could be bad if families gather and some of them get the coronavirus and die, the doctors said.
Right now it is against the law to have more than 10 people in one indoor space including homes. “It is illegal, and you are liable for injury if something bad happens,” he said.
A lot of the virus spread is from “willful ignorance,” Dobb said. Horne described plans for a high school dance this weekend involving hundreds of students in Jones County, where he lives, and called “a horrible, nightmare-ish decision.”
Here are the other important points the top doctors discussed:
▪ “Please remember that most people don’t know they have COVID when they spread it,” Dobb said, and he forecasts “a really challenging holiday season and afterwards.”
▪ Dobbs said that while hospitals are “at the limit,” he wouldn’t be so worried if this were the peak. He told the doctors and other medical professionals listening to the press conference: “It’s going to be hard on you guys for the next month or two.”
▪ The state health department shipped vaccine to eight or nine hospitals in the state this week, said Dr. Paul Byers, sate epidemiologist. Those hospitals sent the vaccine to other facilities in their system, so clinic doctors are starting to get vaccinated as well.
▪ If Moderna vaccine is approved this weekend, shipments could be sent out Sunday, Byers said. “We anticipate getting several thousand douses out to hospitals next week,” he said. About 18 clinics will be set up across the state in early January where healthcare workers will be able to get vaccinated, he said.
▪ You can’t get COVID-19 from the vaccine, and you won’t test positive from a nasal swab after being vaccinated, Dobbs said.
