In Governor Tate Reeves’ daily COVID-19 briefing he announced that the current safety orders in place for the original 13 counties would extend and 10 more counties would be added.
“Mississippi saw 1,251 new COVID-19 cases today. We’ve expanded and extended our executive orders to combat the virus,” said Reeves. “More than 900 hospitalizations. These numbers do not reflect the behavior occurring over the weekend. What we are seeing today are based upon the actions of up to six weeks ago.”
Now 23 of Mississippi’s 82 counties have a mandatory mask order. Masks are required in public, while shopping or gathering. The extension will also run 2 weeks from today and expire August 3 at 8:00 a.m.
Reeves encouraged individuals not living in the mandated counties to also practice wearing a mask in order to slow the spread so that hospitals are not continually overwhelmed with patients.
As of today, according to the State Department of Health, there are 943 confirmed hospitalized cases of Coronavirus with 203 in ICU.
“We’re really at the verge of pushing our system over capacity,” said Dr. Dobbs with MSDH. He said as of right now there is only one ICU bed currently available.
When it comes to the outbreak at the Capitol there are now 45 confirmed cases among all individuals at the capitol.
Dobbs said rumors that COVID is being used as a cause of death, when that is not the case. He said before death certificates are finalized, it is double checked that if COVID is listed, there was a positive test for that person and their death was a result of the virus.
Sarah Ulmer
