No mask order in MS schools. No vaccine plea. Reeves not backing down as COVID erupts
Gov. Tate Reeves continues to reject any mask mandates and refuses to directly ask residents to get vaccinated as the COVID-19 delta variant disaster continues to escalate in Mississippi.
On Thursday afternoon, Reeves held his second public news conference during the delta wave, but did not announce any new measures to combat the pandemic.
“There are those on the right who would like me to make masks and vaccines a political battle. There are those on the left, including most of the reporters in this room, who really want to make political hay and grow their Twitter platforms because I will not issue mandate after mandate after mandate.
“I do not give a damn about any political agenda . . . There will be plenty of time for politics, but this ain’t it.”
People watching Reeves on Facebook Live weren’t buying it.
Comments flew in as Reeves talked, with more than 4,000 posted by the time the one-hour news conference ended. Many commenters were pleading for mask mandates in schools after the deaths in Mississippi of five children from COVID, including a Raleigh teenager who had just returned to class before she got sick.
“We simply can not accept surrender on educating our kids,” Reeves said. “We know there will be outbreaks and we know there will be quarantines. This is the nature of a contagious virus.”
A Facebook commenter quickly fired off, saying, “Education doesn’t mean anything if we can’t keep our kids safe.”
While Reeves had a few defenders, commenters repeatedly said he does not care about Mississippians.
The comments came as a photo of a child in intensive care in Jackson went viral.
Fewer vaccines, record COVID counts in MS
Mississippi has on multiple occasions topped the list of least vaccinated states and, on Wednesday, led the world in COVID cases per capita, according to Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine and founder of nonprofit Scripps Research in California.
The latest case counts, compiled from public health data by The New York Times, show Mississippi has 118 cases per 100,000 in population and a seven-day average of 3,526. The case count is 91% higher than it was 14 days ago.
The state has had to file for disaster assistance under the federal Stafford Act, used for hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward of University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson recently called the state’s COVID crisis “a disaster of our own making.” At UMMC, federal and charity workers are operating two field hospitals because the state has a severe shortage of medical workers.
In fact, the state is trying to muster a medical force of around 1,000 from federal and private vendors.
Reeves shuns mask, other mandates
While Reeves says he is not “playing politics,” his position on masks goes against the latest science and public health advice, even from State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, who stands beside him at these news conferences.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says vaccinated individuals should wear masks in indoor settings to prevent COVID-19 spread, as does Dobbs and the Mississippi State Department of Health. They also say children should wear masks in schools, regardless of vaccination status.
But Reeves refuses to wear a mask after being vaccinated and says the CDC is “foolish” for calling on unvaccinated individuals to wear masks. Reeves also has convened crowds in indoor settings, notably last week in Diamondhead, where most agency heads seated with him were maskless. One outnumbered director took his mask off shortly after Reeves started speaking.
Reeves also recently said that most children who contract COVID suffer only from the sniffles.
One of the Facebook commenters wrote, “I’m sorry, maybe I missed this in a past press conference but . . . has he even given condolences to the 5 kids’ families who’ve passed on his watch or have they only been mentioned passively as a simple headcount?”
Reeves did say during Thursday’s news conference that he is the father of three daughters and understands the tragedy, adding, “Let’s just be perfectly honest, every single death in this pandemic is hard to take.”
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 6:41 PM.
