The mayor of Tupelo, Mississippi, cannot find a single fault for a coronavirus resurgence that plagues his state these days.
But it is clear that it starts at the top.
For Jason Shelton, the approach taken by President Donald Trump and the politicization of the pandemic is where the problem began. It then reached the president’s supporters, such as the state’s Republican governor, who Shelton described as having emulated Trump’s behavior and words toward COVID-19 during the public health crisis.
“What has been created is a mentality of a large segment of the population that COVID is not real, that it is not serious,” said Shelton, a Democrat. “There are conspiracy theorists who think this is all an effort to harm President Trump. I mean, really wacky conspiracy theories floating around, which is hampering the ability of all levels of government to respond to COVID-19. “
And now his home state of Mississippi, like others across the country, faces possible consequences.
Shelton is one of the people in the state who has continued to show concern about pandemic management across the state, which has seen Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves mix severe warnings about the coronavirus with relaxed state rules in recent weeks. that occurred before the recent increase in status. in cases.
Those problems culminated on Wednesday when Reeves announced he was pausing to reopen the state and emphasized “this is not a hoax,” as the state considers next steps. The state needs “more cooperation, not more mandates,” Reeves said..
“Additional orders are useless if people don’t follow what we have now,” Reeves told reporters during a press conference. “And you and I both know that is the reality on the ground.”
With the coronavirus sweeping the South, local officials in Mississippi have been eagerly watching the state’s COVID-19 numbers and lamenting the social and political climate they are in for more than three months in the life-restructuring public health crisis in the fortress of the southern GOP.
The state saw a significant increase last week, with the Mississippi Health Department reporting more than 1,000 new cases in a single day, though counts in recent days have been lower, but still caused concern among those in the state.
The grim image caused state officials to sound terrible alarms, and Reeves posted on social media last Friday that Mississippi “is still at risk of overwhelming our hospital system if trends continue.” The state has also seen hospitalized patients with confirmed infections that have risen to new highs in recent days, according to data from the health department.
“The risk of overwhelming hospitals is very real and acute for us.” said Dr. Alan Jones, assistant vice chancellor for clinical affairs at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, who described the situation in the state as “extremely concerning.”
The positive cases the state has seen in the past week suggest that within the next 10-day week, Jones said, the state will see an increase in hospitalizations.
“I don’t feel sure that our state hospital system is prepared to face a significant increase in the number of cases that we are trying to solve now, with all the other types of problems that we are trying to solve. They are not COVID,” he said. Jones to The Daily Beast.
The governor originally issued an executive order that took effect June 1 opening all companies in the state, albeit with some capacity limitations and restrictions on group meetings, according to the order.
Last Thursday, he went to Facebook Live to express his concern for the state, setting a one-day record with 1,092 new cases, denouncing young people “throwing parties” and “blatantly ignoring the rules,” while begging people in the state to They will wear a mask. The numbers, he noted, were not due to increased evidence.
“They are not because the rules are too flexible,” Reeves said. “It is because people do not follow the more flexible rules that we now have in place.”
A day after the new daily case record, Reeves noted on Facebook that while the numbers had improved, “they have not come back under control.” The state reported 550 new cases when it released data on Friday, but the following week the daily number was 653. An executive order signed by the governor last Friday extended the state’s COVID “safe return” measures through July 6. .
Mississippi was also among a new set of eight states from which people coming to New York will have to be quarantined for 14 days, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday, in a statement from his office citing a “significant spread of the community “in those areas.
At the same time, Dr. J. Clay Hays, president of the Mississippi State Medical Association, described himself as “cautious” when it comes to the state’s coronavirus situation. But he did not paint an image as bleak as Jones, saying that Mississippi is not as challenged as other states like Louisiana.
“We are not in a desperate situation, but I think we are very concerned,” Hays said.
In late March, during the first days of the pandemic, Reeves resisted a state order to stay home as politics became intertwined in the state’s response to the virus. At one point, he told the public, “If you think a state blockade should be happening, then you should put yourself in an individual blockade.”
Soon after that, An executive order from the governor caused confusion and concern because some local leaders believed Reeves was hampering his abilities to direct more aggressive public health measures to contain the coronavirus. Reeves later said the order must be a “statewide flat” for local authorities to follow.
The Governor’s approach caused Shelton to hit the Governor at the time for “creating massive confusion and panic across the state.” While the governor finally signed a statewide refuge order on April 1, its reopening this month has been ruined by the kind of increase in cases that are also affecting other states like Florida.
Tupelo currently has a mandatory order for masks at businesses and retail stores, Shelton said. A similar move has also been made in the city of Jackson, according to the city’s website, with facial covers now largely required in public due to the increase in cases.
And at Moss Point, the city council had opened its doors to the public in mid-May. Mayor Mario King has closed that because of growing concerns about the coronavirus, saying he has seen entire families in his community contract the virus.
“I think people have a lack of fear around COVID-19 right now,” said King, who considers himself independent, and later described that “no sense of urgency is created around COVID in the state of Mississippi. ”
While some Mississippi mayors have continued to question the governor’s approach to the virus in recent days, Hernando Mayor Tom Ferguson was warmer with his fellow Republican. People in his city have supported the state’s reopening trajectory, he said earlier this week before Reeves halted the state’s reopening.
“You’re just going to keep people home that long, and they were ready to go out and do something,” said Ferguson.
For others in Mississippi, the anxiety about the path the virus took is clear. Given its smaller size, the large number of people affected by the virus in Philadelphia, Mississippi and the county in which it is included continue to worry Mayor James Andrew Young.
Looking ahead to the July 4 weekend, the Democrat expects another rebound in the coming weeks “simply because many people are still not taking it as seriously as they should.”
“As a nation, I don’t think we’ve taken this as seriously as we should,” Young said. “And I think our numbers are really out of line for (the) educated society that we are.”
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