These are things businesses can do to help stop COVID, Dr. Dobbs tells MS Coast leaders
Dr. Thomas Dobbs met virtually with business leaders in South Mississippi on Thursday, and provided numbers, advice and stories to help them understand what is happening with COVID-19 in Mississippi.
The emergency meeting was called by the Gulf Coast Business Council and the local chambers of commerce to update members on the current situation and provide information on what they can do in their businesses.
Numbers are one thing, Dobbs said, but stories make it real.
Dobbs said his wife runs the intensive care unit in Laurel. A couple of weeks ago, an oil field worker in his mid-30s and a little overweight came in with the coronavirus.
His mother had been begging him for months to get vaccinated.
“I don’t need the vaccine. I can survive COVID. It’s not for me,” were the man’s justifications for not getting immunized, Dobbs said.
“He did not survive COVID,” he said. He entered the hospital and died a couple day later, leaving a widow and two young kids.
“If he’d have been vaccinated he would not have died. He’d be with us,” Dobbs said.
“Nobody in Mississippi has died from the COVID vaccine,” he said, and urged people to “Avoid internet mind poison as much as you can.”
What business owners can do
The CEOs of the three local medical systems also were on the call to share what they’ve seen and experienced with the 300 people who joined Thursday’s Zoom meeting.
“I know I’m looking at a lot of people on the screen who are not vaccinated,” Wilson Thomas, CEO of Ochsner Medical Center — Hancock in Bay St. Louis as well as the Slidell and New Orleans hospitals.
Dobbs said there’s been a tripling on new vaccinations in Mississippi the past few weeks as the delta variant spread, but Mississippi needs about a million more people to get the vaccine.
He advised:
▪ VACCINE OR TESTING MANDATES: Business owners can be more aggressive and issue mandatory vaccination orders or testing each week. “Y’all have that authority,” and it is legally defensible, he said.
▪ NO TESTS TO RETURN AFTER A POSITIVE: Don’t bother testing employees who had the coronavirus when they return to work after 14 days of quarantine or after 10 days with asymptomatic cases, he said. They can continue to test positive for many months, but does not mean they are contagious. Workers who were exposed and quarantined but have not yet tested positive should still be tested.
▪ OUTDOOR EVENTS RELATIVELY SAFE FOR VACCINATED: Ribbon cuttings and gatherings held outdoors are relatively safe for vaccinated people without a mask, he said. The problem is when people gather indoors before or after an outdoor event, such as at a restaurant or household.
▪ MASK INDOORS: “I think masks indoors makes sense,” Dobbs said. In his office, most of the employees are vaccinated, but they wear masks indoors and socially distance at meetings. The department has more virtual meetings, which he said in some ways is more efficient.
▪ INCENTIVES FOR VACCINES: Incentives work, he said. The state doesn’t allow the health department to provide monetary incentives to get vaccine, so Dobbs said he used his own money to buy a Yeti cooler and an iPad to be raffled to those who were immunized.
▪ VENTILATION: The more air circulation the better, both indoors and out. Opening windows, using fans and improving air-conditioning systems are recommended steps, he said.
Creating a vaccine lottery on the Coast
The Mississippi Gulf Coast has been one of the leading regions of the country for economic recovery during the pandemic, Ashley Edwards, president of the Gulf Coast Business Council, said during the meeting.
The last thing the business community wants to do is anything to slow that recovery, he said.
So business leaders are working together on a program to provide incentives so more people will get vaccinated.
If that sounds like a bribe — “We think it’s that important, and yes we are,” Edward said.
Scarlet Pearl Casino committed the first $50,000, Edwards said, and Chevron and Ingalls Shipbuilding each put in an additional $10,000 even before anyone was asked for help.
Those who previously got the vaccine will be eligible, he said, and prizes will be announces.
Donations can be made through the Gulf Coast Community Foundation website.
Edwards said this is a way for South Mississippi to get national attention and show the region takes getting vaccinated very seriously.
Worse before it gets better
Dobbs said Mississippi has far outpaced the number of cases with the delta variant compared to last summer.
“There is no suggestion that we’re rounding off the curve,” he said. He doesn’t see cases peaking for another three to four weeks at the earliest, he said, and hospitalizations will last longer
The numbers show 15% of those who go in the hospital for COVID-19 are going to die, he said.
Two-thirds of the people who have to go on life support to breathe will not go home, he said, and those who do won’t be the same as when they came in.
“We’re about to undermine the workforce in large measure, for a lot of reasons, but one of them is going to be we’re going to have a wave of disabilities,” he said
“Without a doubt, it’s going to be the new leading cause of disability claims in the near future,” he said.
