MSDH recommends masks indoors for all Mississippians, confirms new child death from COVID
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Jul. 28—TUPELO — Mississippi State Department of Health is now recommending that all Mississippians wear masks in indoor public settings, whether vaccinated or not.
Individuals 65 years of age or older and those with chronic medical conditions should avoid all indoor mass gatherings regardless of vaccination status.
If a person is exposed to someone with COVID-19, they should be tested three to five days after exposure. If not fully vaccinated, the person should quarantine for at least 10 days. Fully vaccinated individuals are not required to quarantine after being exposed, but should get tested, MSDH said.
During a livestreamed press briefing, Wednesday, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said the state is seeing a "phenomenal increase in the number of cases," which is causing significant stress on the health care system.
Beginning July 29, a COVID-19 system of care plan will take effect for all hospitals in Mississippi to help ensure proper assignment of patients to proper levels of care, Senior Deputy and Director of Health Protection Jim Craig said. As a result, elective procedures requiring hospitalization will be delayed through Aug. 15, beginning Monday.
"This is not surprising," Dobbs said. "It's something we've been seeing it come for a while. It's a sort of grand combination of a low level of immunity in our population combined with the Delta variant and us being more active."
In addition to new guidance, the health department also confirmed an additional child death as a result of COVID-19 — the fourth in Mississippi since the pandemic began.
One child was between the age of 1 and 5, another was between the age of 6 to 10 and two were between the age of 11 and 17. The latest death was a teenager.
"The recent death had an underlying medical issue, but it was a common medical issue," Dobbs said. "It's nothing that people don't live with everyday in the state of Mississippi commonly, so this is a real tragedy and speaks to the importance of us preventing transmission."
He added that while severe outcomes in children are rare, when there are lots of COVID cases and ongoing transmission this type of tragedy can occur.
Quote
State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said MSDH will update its back to school guidance to align with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention latest recommendations for K-12 schools, which calls for all students, teachers, staff and visitors wear masks indoors.
"As we head back to school, we need to have an expectation that we are going to see cases in the school setting," Byers said. "We will see cases among students and we will see cases among teachers, and I think it is incumbent upon all of us to put in place the full recommendations to prevent transmission within the school settings."
Those recommendations include vaccination for eligible individuals, masking for all individuals in indoor settings regardless of vaccination status, screening/testing of asymptomatic individuals to identify cases early, quarantining those who are sick and conducting contact tracing.
Despite requiring face masks be worn by staff and students 6 years of age and older for the entire 2020-21 school year, Gov. Tate Reeves has said he has no plans to issue another statewide mask mandate for K-12 schools. That leaves the decision up to each individual school district.
The number of positive COVID-19 cases has rapidly increased in July. From June 30 to July 13, there have been 5,155 confirmed cases. The following two weeks, July 14 to July 27, a total of 12,453 cases were confirmed. That's a 142% increase between the two-week periods.
Dobbs said 93% of COVID-19 samples analyzed in Mississippi now are the Delta variant, which is twice as contagious as previous variants.
The majority of cases, hospitalizations and deaths are among the unvaccinated. Between June 30 and July 27, 96% of individuals who tested positive were unvaccinated, along with 88% of those hospitalized and 82% of COVID-related deaths.
But the prevalence of COVID-19 among the unvaccinated is spilling over into the vaccinated population, Dobbs said. Between June 30 and July 27, 12% of Mississippians hospitalized with COVID-19 were fully vaccinated, as were 18% of those who died.
Thirty-eight fully vaccinated Mississippians died from COVID-19 between June 30 and July 27. One of them was between the ages of 40 and 49, five were between the ages of 50 and 64, and 32 were age 65 or older.
"Especially with the Delta (variant), I think it's even more abundantly obvious that you will either get the vaccine or you'll get COVID," Dobbs said. "And if you haven't had COVID before or you haven't been vaccinated, you're very likely to get the Delta variant in the coming weeks."
With the level of immunity in our population and the contagiousness of Delta, the average unvaccinated individual who contracts COVID-19 will spread it to three other people, Dobbs said.
"So who are those three people you're going to give coronavirus to that you didn't plan on giving it to?" Dobbs said. "Because it happens before you know it. You're contagious before you even know you're symptomatic."
As always, MSDH officials stressed the best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is to be vaccinated and encouraged individuals to consult their doctors if they are still unsure about receiving the vaccine.
Mississippians who would like to be vaccinated can receive a free vaccine at any county health department in the state, and MSDH continues to offer vaccinations via pop-up sites in rural areas.
Pop-up vaccination sites will be set up in Tippah and Clay counties in Northeast Mississippi from July 28 to 31. More information can be found on MSDH's website under the "Vaccination" section.
