Governor Reeves makes plans to extend state of emergency

Governor Tate Reeves says State of Emergency will continue in order to assist hospitals. 

On Thursday, Governor Tate Reeves told WLOX that he plans to extend the State of Emergency (SOE) order in Mississippi in order to get hospitals the emergency resources they need to combat the rising number of COVID-19 cases.

Right now, many hospitals are reporting full ICU beds. There are currently 337 ICU beds filled with COVID-19 related patients. Reeves said the challenge is in finding staff to care for those individuals. He noted that hospitals across the state have lost roughly 2,000 nurses in the last few months, stretching already thinned resources, thinner.

The SOE was set to expire on August 15, but will be extended for an additional 30 days.

Reeves said in the interview that they do know this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. The Mississippi State Department of Health is reporting that 98% of all hospitalizations are that of unvaccinated individuals.

Gov. Reeves says, “In times of emergency, we have to remain calm,” noting he realizes there is a lot of anger pitting those who support masks and vaccines against people who won’t get vaccinated ⁦@WLOX⁩ pic.twitter.com/vPbSNJKLli

— Brad Kessie (@BradWLOX) August 12, 2021

“We didn’t know what we didn’t know (in March). What we do know today is that an individual that gets the vaccine is much less likely to get the virus and much less likely to spread the virus.” said Reeves.

With students and teachers back in school many are concerned that the virus will continue to spread in those populations without a mask order. Reeves has been on the record saying he will not order a mask mandate, but leave it up to districts and individual schools.

“The reality is there is an opportunity for them to recognize how bad the cases are, how many vaccinated they have in their school among kids and employees, and they can make that decision on the local level,” said Reeves in the interview.

Reeves took to Twitter to outline details of the decision.

In coordination with @tcbpubhealth and @msema, I will extend Mississippi’s State of Emergency for 30 more days.

This extension will ease the process of marshalling additional resources for our response (that I described yesterday), (1/4)

— Tate Reeves (@tatereeves) August 12, 2021