Mississippi's state health officer used some of the strongest language yet to describe the state's battle with the COVID-19's Delta variant, which he says is mainly a plague against the unvaccinated and those under age 50.
“It's been kind of a hard time around here at the Department of Health, just just to be honest it's been exhausting,” Dr. Thomas Dobbs told a media briefing. “I think we're all emotionally spent. I kind of personally feel like I'm an air traffic controller. And every day, I'm watching two airliners collide and I'm constantly warning we're constantly warning to change course and we never do.
“It is distressing to see what's going on. And know that almost all of these deaths are preventable.”
The numbers posted by the Department of Health show 4,412 new cases as of August 11, with 20 new deaths related to COVID-19. There have been 376,124 cases in Mississippi since the pandemic began and 7,730 deaths (2.06 percent of those who developed COVID-19 died).
He said the reason for the Delta variant hitting the age 50 and under population rather than the age 65 and above as at the beginning of the pandemic was because of the vaccination rates of the older population as compared to younger cohorts.
There have been 2.3 million doses of the vaccines administered statewide, with 1.29 million receiving at least one dose and 1.06 million fully immunized. In the last four weeks, there have been 187,124 doses administered, an increase of 110 percent over the previous four weeks, when more than 89,000 doses were administered.
The Health Department says 98 percent of new cases are unvaccinated and that those who still develop COVID-19, despite already being vaccinated, were age 78 and older with serious immunological disorders. Ninety percent of hospitalizations were from the unvaccinated population, with 84 percent of the new COVID-related deaths coming from those without at least dose of vaccine.
Dobbs said the state's intensive care unit capacity had zero beds available and that many of the state's emergency room have dozens of people waiting for an ICU bed.
Director of Health Protection, Jim Craig, said the biggest problem for hospitals statewide is a lack of staffing and said he's working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to bring more staff temporarily to the state.
Dr. Paul Byers, the state's epidemiologist, said he expects a significant impact in the school setting as students return.
He said there has already been 80 outbreaks in the last two weeks in the 342 schools that have reported, with 4,400 students placed in quarantine over exposure to COVID-19. There were more than 800 students who tested positive, along with more than 300 teachers.
He also said the recently concluded Neshoba County Fair, which returned to its traditional July date after being canceled last year, acted as a spreader event for the virus.
Dr. Byers also said that every one of the state's 82 counties has high transmission rates with the Delta variant.
