Where does Mississippi stand with COVID-19 as delta wave slows and holidays ahead?
As early as July, Mississippi State Medical Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs signaled what would become an unmanageable public health crisis in the state, tweeting that the “4th wave is here.”
Cases spiked to an all-time high during the months of August and September, making the Magnolia State a global COVID-19 hotspot and first in national mortality numbers.
Now back to mostly sub-1,000 daily positive case counts in October, the fourth wave is trending down despite a lingering spike in deaths.
But the past three months were almost certainly not the last wave of COVID.
“Stable cases but still too many deaths. We have lost too many to COVID in MS. We have the tools to prevent these deaths,” Dobbs tweeted Tuesday.
“I don’t think it’s the last wave,” he said during a Mississippi State Medical Association roundtable discussion on Friday. “And now what we see, we’ve got more people immune, but it’s a large section of the population, maybe a million, maybe 750,000 who are not immune, either because of natural infection or because of vaccination, and that does leave us very vulnerable for additional outbreaks.”
Singing River Health System pulmonologist Dr. Ijlal Babar said he doesn’t know when a new variant could spread through the state, but the chances of it happening are “extremely high.”
“I think you could accept that as a given,” Babar told the Sun Herald.
As of Wednesday, the Department of Health reports 25 available intensive care unit beds across the Coast, which is a welcome change compared to a few weeks ago, when ICUs were so full that patients were cared for in the emergency room — leaving “younger and sicker” patients in packed waiting areas for as long as 10 hours.
Singing River has some empty ICU beds right now, which is “so much better” than having COVID-19 patients in the ER, Babar said.
“We’re definitely in a better situation than we were three or four weeks ago,” he said.
Delta ravaged MS
The delta variant’s arrival in Mississippi made national headlines as one of the first states to experience it, leaving 2,450 dead and 171,779 cases from July 19 until Oct. 13.
In October, there have been 8,457 positive cases, averaging about 939 cases and 33 deaths a day, compared to previous month averages:
- September - 2,348 positives and 54 deaths a day
- August - 4,237 positives and 39 deaths a day.
From when Dobbs declared the fourth wave had started on July 14 until the end of July, the average case count was 1,417 positives and seven deaths a day, so October’s death count is still around the worst of the fourth wave.
August recorded the highest positive case counts, totaling 83,217, though September was the deadliest month of the entire pandemic, with 1,192 deaths.
On Aug. 12, the health department sounded the alarm for increased hospitalizations, tweeting “Today the state has surpassed all previous highs in Mississippians hospitalized for COVID-19. Hospitals are operating at emergency capacity to cope with the incoming flood of COVID-19 patients. Of the nearly 1,500 now in a hospital for COVID-19, more than 1,300 are unvaccinated.”
Mississippi at most points of the wave touted the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates in the nation, with the Gulf Coast ranked even lower.
Now, 45% of Mississippians have received both shots, with Harrison County at 39%, followed by Jackson County at 38% and Hancock at 30%.
Across the U.S., 56% of Americans are reportedly fully vaccinated.
Vaccination numbers ticked upward during the past few months but have dropped down again across Mississippi.
“This isn’t going to last forever, it’s getting better and hopefully it will continue to get better, and if we do some simple things, it will get better faster,” Dobbs said.
“It’s almost like we discovered a way to make things better, and then the minute things start looking better, we stop the things that make it better so it’s going to get worse.”
Last January, the original, alpha strain of COVID barreled through the state and vaccinations weren’t available to the public. But the fourth wave spike has been much higher than that one.
“When we had the winter surge before, we didn’t have many people who were immune, but we also had a viral strain that was not as contagious,” said Dobbs.
COVID and 2021 holidays
Powerful COVID transmission occurred after the July 4 holiday, spurring the onset of the fourth wave, Dobbs said.
Now, with the dust somewhat settled and Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas on the horizon, he and Gulf Coast health officials say Mississippians’ actions will determine the outcome of future spikes.
“It’s easy to anticipate that we might have an additional resurgence after we get back into the holidays, people are sort of mixing and mingling and kids are coming back home from college,” Dobbs said.
Outdoor activities like trick-or-treating should be safe, as outdoor transmission is “pretty uncommon,” Dobbs said, mirroring the nation’s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci’s suggestion that trick-or-treating should be fine among the vaccinated this year.
“I think that, particularly if you’re vaccinated, you can get out there and enjoy it,” Fauci told CNN’s ‘State of the Union” this weekend.
Over the summer and early fall, the Gulf Coast seldom paused activities outside — football games and large events like Cruisin’ The Coast were well-attended, even throughout the delta wave.
“Look, it’s not like things have stopped all along. Games are going on, you go downtown, people are in restaurants and bars. So it’s not like things ever stopped. So I don’t think [Cruisin’ The Coast] is going to have such a big effect,” Babar said.
“I think between the people infected and vaccinated, we probably have significant immunity in our community now. And I would hope that this would just keep getting better.”
Indoor social gatherings will be the largest challenge of the upcoming holiday season, according to Dobbs.
“It’s the same problem we’ve always had. I think we have to continue to be careful about who we congregate with,” he said. “I think keep it small or keep it outdoors.”
More vaccinations needed
The “tools” to minimize another COVID wave extend past social distancing and staying outdoors during the holidays — vaccinations are still the first and best defense.
Vice President of Clinic Operations at Memorial Hospital at Gulfport Matt Walker said he anticipates that if the Coast could get “as vaccinated as we possibly can get,” before the holidays, a future wave could be lessened.
“Then maybe come Christmas time, it won’t be as bad as the way it has been,” he said in an interview with the Sun Herald.
“This appears to be kind of the new... the new health care where we’re almost like an accordion, where we have normal operations for a few months followed by this wave of a new variant. If the vaccine proves to be a very good way to combat that and mitigate deaths in your community, we absolutely need people to take advantage,” he said.
Immunity is much better after vaccination, even if an individual has already had COVID and has some sort of natural immunity, Babar said.
“Absolutely still get vaccinated,” said Babar. “That’s the one take-home message I just want to give to people. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been infected, we know that immunity from the infection is short. Their immunity is going to be much better than someone who’s not been infected. So they should get themselves vaccinated.”
This article and live event is supported by the Journalism and Public Information Fund, a fund of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
This story was originally published October 14, 2021 at 5:50 AM.
