The Mississippi Department of Health is reevaluating its COVID-19 guidance for K-12 schools following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) loosening its own recommendations on Aug. 11.
The new CDC guidance further emphasizes individual risk mitigation over population-level precautions.
“We know that COVID-19 is here to stay,” Greta Massetti, a CDC epidemiologist, said at a press conference following the release of the new guidance. “High levels of population immunity due to vaccination and previous infection, and the many tools that we have available to protect people from severe illness and death, have put us in a different place.”
Over the course of the pandemic, COVID-19 has infected over 896,000 Mississippians and killed nearly 13,000. Mississippi has the highest per capita death rate from COVID-19 of any state in the nation, with 427 deaths for every 100,000 people, compared to a national average of 311, according to the New York Times.
CDC guidance no longer differentiates between vaccinated and unvaccinated people in its recommendations. Mississippi remains one of the least vaccinated states in the nation, only ahead of Wyoming, according to CDC data. Just 53% of the state’s population has been fully vaccinated and only 21% have received a booster dose.
The state health department’s COVID-19 guidance for the current school year was released in July. In its current form, it recommends actions no longer included in CDC guidelines.
The CDC removed a recommendation that kids who are contacts of someone who tested positive for COVID-19 take regular tests, and test negative, to remain in the classroom. The process was known as “test-to-stay.”
Schools in Mississippi are able to receive at-home BinaxNOW COVID-19 tests through its School Based Screening Testing Initiative. One of the allowed uses for these tests is test-to-stay initiatives, and the department recommends that asymptomatic teachers and students receive a negative test on days one, three and five after exposure to remain in the classroom.
“MSDH is aware of the updated guidance from CDC and is currently reviewing to determine the modifications and updates that will be needed in Mississippi’s guidance to schools moving forward,” State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said.
The CDC no longer recommends a practice known as cohorting in schools. In cohorting, students are divided into smaller groups and contact between them is limited to avoid potential transmission.
The new guidelines note that schools should consider continuing surveillance testing in certain situations, such as when students are returning from school breaks or for certain groups at higher risk of transmitting the virus, such those who play contact sports.
Indoor masking is still recommended for areas with high levels of community transmission.
The new CDC guidance no longer recommends quarantining after exposure, but instead wearing a high-quality mask for 10 days and testing on day 5 after exposure. The new guidance also removed the recommendation for social distancing by standing six feet apart from others.
Officials with Greenwood Leflore Hospital announced it is working on clean-up efforts as the result of clogged manholes that forced sewage into the crawl space below the hospital. They cannot say when the hospital will be able to resume its operations.
The hospital on Monday closed its clinics, canceled outpatient testing and transferred 17 patients to eight other hospitals, according to hospital spokesperson Christine Hemphill. Sixteen patients were discharged.
“We are in the process of submitting a report and scope of work that remediates the situation to the Life Safety Code Inspector at MSDH (Mississippi Department of Health),” Hemphill said in an email. “If the problem is not as significant as initially thought and isolated to some extent, we could remediate without an on-site survey by the Life Safety Code Inspector. If an on-site survey is required, we feel certain it will happen in a timely fashion as he is fully aware of the urgency to reopen services at the hospital.”
Hemphill said a “partial reopening of services” is also being considered.
Employees of Greenwood Leflore who spoke to Mississippi Today on the condition their names not be used said there was a “foul odor” in certain areas of the hospital for several days. One employee said staff was either sent home without pay or told to use vacation time.
The hospital, which is jointly owned by Leflore County and the city of Greenwood, laid off 30 people in May to offset losses during the pandemic. It announced in June that it is in talks with UMMC on a joint operation agreement.
“GLH began the process of seeking affiliation partners as the hospital emerged from the Delta and Omicron waves of the pandemic,” the hospital said in a press release. “Affiliation, particularly with a larger system like UMMC, the state’s only academic medical center and largest hospital, can result in cost efficiencies that are necessary to attain sustainable operations over the long term.”
Editor’s note: This story includes graphic language.
In “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future,” New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns paint a vivid picture of a country confronting crisis after crisis.
Credit: Mississippi Book Festival
Covering everything from President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud and efforts to overturn the election results, to President Joe Biden’s unwillingness to decide what kind of president he is going to be, this book shows the degree to which our institutions and political leaders are failing us, and the increasingly thin lines separating the country from even greater catastrophe.
The book is filled with those behind-the-scenes anecdotes and vivid retellings that are the bread and butter of the best campaign books, like John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s “Game Change,” about the 2008 presidential election, or Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’ “Shattered” on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. All of it is deeply reported, drawing on hundreds of interviews and documents from the highest levels of government.
Split into three parts, the book covers the pre-election period starting in March 2020 that saw the coronavirus pandemic upend the country and the presidential campaigns, the election itself up to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and the first year of Biden’s presidency.
The Republican and Democrat camps are kept separate for most of the book, except for in scenes where the two are in the same place, such as during the insurrection, which makes the ever widening gulfs between the two groups even more jarring to take in. One one side, you have Trump, tightening his grip on the Republican Party even after trying to overturn a free and fair election that he lost. On the other, you have Biden, unwilling to decide whether he wants to be a business-as-usual unifier or a FDR-like transformational figure, and upsetting almost everyone in his fragile coalition in the process.
The Trump-focused sections of the book do a great job painting vivid pictures of Republican leaders. The authors dive into the complete deterioration of the relationship between U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and Trump, who have not spoken since McConnell recognized Biden’s victory as legitimate. The authors report a hostile phone call between the two after that event where Trump raised his voice at McConnell.
The book also details McConnell’s shift from being ready for Trump to be purged from the Republican party in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6 to realizing that the former president’s grip on his party would endure long after he left the Oval Office.
“The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us,” McConnell said, referring to the second impeachment vote in the House over Trump’s incitement of the Jan. 6 riot. Soon though, the anger McConnell felt towards Trump took a backseat to the need to avoid inter-party conflict if Republicans were going to retake the Senate in 2022.
The book also details the wide gulf between the public and private attitudes towards Trump by prolific Republicans. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is portrayed as someone who hates his job but is also singularly focused on becoming speaker of the House. Despite audio recordings in which McCarrthy told Liz Cheney that he thought Trump should resign, he was soon again doing all he could to gain favor with a man who calls him a “pussy” with an “inferiority complex” behind his back.
On the Democratic side, the book details Biden’s failure to unify “a vast set of constituencies that shared a deep antipathy to Trump and little else.” The authors note the distinct possibility that Biden will be a one term president due to his age and his deep desire to have a transformational term that leaves a legacy that can compete with the accomplishments of the Obama Administration.
“I am confident that Barack is not happy with the coverage of this administration as more transformative than his,” Biden told one adviser.
The major question Martin and Burns examine in this account of “an existential battle for the survival of the democratic system” is whether or not our institutions can continue to function amidst these compounding crises. The answer they give early in the book is “a resounding: sort of.” As this is the work of reporters and not fortune tellers, I think that’s the best answer we’ve got right now.
Jonathan Martin is a featured panelist at the Mississippi Book Festival on Aug. 20.
The U.S. District Court has dismissed all charges against three co-defendants in a kickback conspiracy involving money from the Mississippi Department of Education. Charges against the former MDE employee and lead defendant are still pending.
A 2020 federal lawsuit alleges David Hunt and Lambert Martin were conspirators in a scheme to improperly grant state contracts. According to the lawsuit, Cerissa Neal, a former MDE employee and the main defendant whose charges are still pending, conspired to split contract requests from one contract into smaller contracts in order to avoid the required competitive bidding process. She then allegedly awarded the contract to her co-defendants’ businesses at an inflated price.
Hunt and Martin had their charges dismissed on July 26, according to court documents. Errol Harmon, who was accused of receiving and paying kickbacks from the inflated contracts, has also had all charges against him dismissed.
Charges against Joseph Kyles, Neal’s final co-defendant, are still pending.
Hunt, the owner of Doc Imaging and Hunt Services in Jackson, Tenn., told Mississippi Today in 2020 he hired Kyles as a consultant to help his document management company find business over a three-year period. He said at the time he had all of his receipts and did not know why he’d been charged.
“At the Government’s request, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi dismissed all charges against David Hunt,” said his attorney Michael Dawkins in a statement. “This dismissal against Mr. Hunt solidifies his reputation as an exceptional father, husband and community leader, and is consistent with what Mr. Hunt has asserted all along: that he is not guilty of the wrongdoing with which he was charged. Mr. Hunt is thankful to be restored to his rightful place in the community.”
Jacinta Hall, the attorney for Martin, said that Martin had also hired Kyles as a consultant to expand his business in Mississippi. Martin had maintained that he was not at fault since the original indictment in 2020.
“After reviewing the evidence with Mr. Martin and the Department of Justice, they agreed that he was not at fault in the way that they originally thought,” Hall said.
Hall described Martin as “ecstatic” that the charges were dismissed.
Both Neal and Kyles originally pled not guilty, and their jury trial has been repeatedly postponed. Court documents show it is currently scheduled for Sept. 6.
Attorneys for Neal and Kyles could not be reached by the time of publication.
A defendant in Mississippi’s civil lawsuit to recoup millions in misspent welfare money is asking the court to examine whether Gov. Tate Reeves is controlling the case to protect himself and his supporters.
The texts show former welfare director John Davis, who is facing criminal charges in the welfare scandal, said he was fulfilling then-Lt. Gov. Reeves’ wishes when he funneled over $1 million to Reeves’ fitness trainer, a defendant in the suit.
The Reeves administration also recently fired the attorney bringing the welfare suit, former U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott, after the attorney attempted to subpoena the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation for its communication with, among others, former Gov. Phil Bryant. Bryant oversaw the welfare department when the scandal occurred.
Reeves’ staff had already forced Pigott to remove the athletic foundation, whose board is made up of many Reeves supporters and campaign donors, from the suit before he filed it.
“It is an abuse of power for Governor Reeves to frustrate a state agency’s collecting monies owed it in order to protect his financial supporters,” wrote Waide, the Tupelo-based attorney representing Davis’ nephew Austin Smith, who received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the agency during his uncle’s administration. “It is an abuse of power for Governor Reeves to direct litigation in which he is a necessary party defendant.”
The suit targets 38 individuals or companies, including former NFL quarterback Brett Favre and three retired WWE wrestlers, in an attempt to claw back about $24 million in misspent funds from a federal block grant called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, which is supposed to serve the state’s poorest residents. The suit is based on a forensic audit that found $77 million worth of fraud or misspending. There are separate criminal cases against six defendants, four of whom have pleaded guilty and agreed to aid prosecutors in the ongoing state and federal criminal investigations.
Mississippi Today’s investigation “The Backchannel” provides evidence of former Gov. Bryant’s involvement in the scandal and one of the defendants in both the civil and criminal cases, nonprofit founder Nancy New, alleged that Bryant directed her to pay Favre. State and federal authorities reached their plea deal with New days after Mississippi Today’s series finished publishing in April.
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Pigott, who had been on the civil case for a year and filed the suit in May, told Mississippi Today he believed his firing was political. Reeves confirmed as much, saying he believed Pigott, a semi-retired former President Bill Clinton appointee, was the one with a political agenda.
Mississippi Department of Human Services, the agency bringing the lawsuit, is prepared to hire Jackson-based law firm Jones Walker to replace Pigott on the case. The State Personnel Board is expected to review the contract, which the Attorney General must also approve, at its Aug. 18 meeting. MDHS has not released the contract or its dollar amount.
“MDHS worked quickly to identify a firm that would continue the important civil litigation,” reads a statement from the agency.
In a motion opposing Pigott’s withdrawal, Waide argues that Reeves has an interest in protecting members of the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation, which is curiously absent from the suit despite receiving $5 million in welfare funds to build a volleyball stadium on campus on behalf of Favre – an alleged violation of federal regulations, at the least. Mississippi Today reported that several members of the foundation’s board are Reeves campaign donors.
Citing a recent Mississippi Today article, Waide also asserts that Reeves “also has a financial interest in this case because he played a substantial role in obtaining welfare funds (TANF funds) for Defendant Paul Victor Lacoste.”
Waide’s filing Monday asks for a hearing to determine:
Whether Reeves unlawfully caused Pigott’s firing because Pigott was gathering evidence against Reeves supporters
Whether Reeves caused the allegedly illegal payments to Lacoste, and should therefore be added as a defendant to the suit
Whether Reeves is trying to steer the department to hire a new firm that will protect his supporters and focus on lower-level figures
Whether the court should intervene to prevent Reeves from controlling the case
Whether the state should be forced to hire a new firm on a contingency basis only to prevent any more use of taxpayer money on the case
Waide, who filed a similar motion in July arguing that Bryant should be a defendant in the suit based on Mississippi Today’s reporting, also said in his most recent filing that most of the current defendants do not have the assets necessary for the state to successfully recoup damages.
But the civil suit also serves the purpose of finding answers for the public, especially since there have been no criminal trials more than two years after the initial arrests.
Pigott had set several dates in the following weeks for depositions in the civil case, but the state has since canceled those. Meanwhile, Davis has filed a motion to stay, which is pending and will determine if the case will be postponed until after the criminal cases conclude.
“A stay will delay and frustrate discovery so as to cause all necessary defendants not to be joined, including both former Governor Bryant and Governor Reeves,” Waide wrote.
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On Aug. 9, Oxford police testified for the first time to the evidence used to charge 22-year-old Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr. for the murder of Jimmie “Jay” Lee. During a preliminary hearing, Ryan Baker, an OPD detective, laid out the steps that police took before arresting Herrington for killing Lee.
A Black student who was well-known in Oxford’s LGBTQ community, Lee’s body is still missing more than a month after he disappeared on July 8. Herrington has not yet entered a plea in the case, but his uncle Carlos Moore has said he believes Herrington did not kill Lee.
To help the public understand how police investigate missing persons cases, Mississippi Today has recreated the timeline of OPD’s investigation into Lee’s death using Baker’s testimony and publicly available documents.
This post will be updated as more information is released about the investigation.
July 8
Around 8:30 p.m., the University of Mississippi Police Department receives a call from Lee’s mom, Stephanie Lee, requesting a wellness check. Stephanie tells police her son’s location isn’t showing up on her iPhone and that it’s alarming for Lee to let his phone die.
About 15 minutes later, according to UMPD’s initial incident report, an officer checks on Lee’s apartment at Campus Walk, a university-owned student housing complex. The door is slightly ajar, and Lee’s dog is inside.
UMPD starts pulling video surveillance footage from Campus Walk. The footage, Baker testified, shows Lee leaving his apartment a little after 4 a.m., coming back about 40 minutes later, then leaving again at 5:58 a.m.
July 10
UMPD posts on social media asking for information about Lee’s whereabouts. The post includes a description of Lee’s car, a black Ford Fusion with a gold stripe on the front hood and a Mississippi license plate reading “JAYLEE1.”
UMPD then receives a call from Bandit Towing, a company in Oxford. Bandit Towing tells UMPD that it towed Lee’s car from Molly Barr Trails, an apartment complex in northeast Oxford, at 1:52 p.m. on July 8, and gives UMPD a picture of Lee’s car parked in the back of Molly Barr Trails, near a wooded area that stretches to the airport.
The Oxford Police Department gets involved in the case and receives a call on its tip line from one of Lee’s friends who says they had talked over Snapchat early in the morning on July 8. Lee’s friend tells OPD that Lee was in the car on the way to meet someone “he had previously hooked up with,” Baker testified.
Lee didn’t say who he was going to meet, Baker testified that the friend recalled, but said he had blocked the person on social media following a fight they’d had a few hours earlier. The person then reached out on Snapchat “under a username Jay Lee didn’t recognize,” Baker testified Lee’s friend said, and “offered to do something to Jay Lee they’d never done before” that was implied to be sexual in nature.
July 11
To trace how Lee’s car ended up at Molly Barr Trails, Baker testified that OPD starts obtaining video surveillance from businesses along Jackson Avenue, a main thoroughfare in Oxford, and the front office at Molly Barr Trails.
Footage from the front office shows Lee’s car arriving at Molly Barr Trails at 7:25 a.m. Nine minutes later, Baker testified that the footage shows a “Black male running from Molly Barr Trails” wearing dark shorts, a gray hoodie and black-and-white sneakers. Baker noted during his testimony that the video does not show this same person running into the complex.
Around 7:38 a.m., footage from agas station on Molly Barr Trails showed the same person – who officers will later determine is Herrington – jogging into the parking lot and meeting a white Kia Optima with an Ole Miss tag.
July 13
OPD searches Molly Barr Trailswith help from K-9s from theDeSoto County Sheriff’s Office and releases a video of Lee’s father pleading for more information.
July 15
Lee’s family organizes a search party at Clear Creek Lake, a conservation area north of Oxford near where the body of Ally Kostial, a UM student who was murdered by her boyfriend, was found in 2019.
July 20
OPD announces the FBI and Mississippi Attorney General’s Office are assisting in the investigation.
July 21
OPD receives Lee’s Snapchat data – including his messages and blocked contacts – and identifies Herrington as a person of interest.
Lee’s Snapchat data corroborates the account his friend gave to OPD on July 10. Snapchat’s location data puts Lee in the vicinity of Herrington’s apartment for the last time at 6:12 a.m. on July 8.
Starting at 5:17 a.m. on July 8, Lee’s Snapchat messages show a conversation with an account named “redeye_24” that Lee doesn’t recognize. OPD determines “redeye_24” is Herrington by identifying the phone number associated with the Snapchat account, a Google Voice number registered to an email for Herrington’s podcast, “Dirt 2 Diamonds.” An account belonging to Herrington is also among Lee’s blocked contacts.
In the messages, Herrington asks Lee to “come back” to his apartment, but Lee initially refuses, calling the way Herrington treated him earlier that night as an “asshole move.” Lee then says that he thinks Herrington is “just tryna lure me over there to beat my ass or something.” Herrington replies, “you trippin,” adding, “I do feel bad because we cool so I ain’t trying to end it like this.”
Lee replies the only way he will go back to Herrington’s apartment is if Herrington reciprocates oral sex, and Herrington agrees. Lee tells Herrington it won’t “end up good” if he tries to “hurt me or some shit.” Herrington replies “I know.”
July 22
OPD pulls the car tags of the white Kia Optima – the car that Herrington met at the gas station parking lot – and realizes an officer pulled the car over during a traffic stop on the morning of July 8. OPD looks at the officer’s body camera, which shows a Black male in the passenger seat wearing clothes that match the video footage from Molly Barr Trails.
Mid-morning, officers knock on Herrington’s door at DLP Oxford, a luxury student housing complex. Baker testified that Herrington opens the door, answers “a few general questions about knowing Jay Lee” and asks officers to “excuse the mess … because he was moving to Dallas soon.” Baker recalls that clothes and towels were lying on the couch, as if Herrington had just done laundry.
OPD detains Herrington and takes him back to the precinct for questioning. At 2:44 p.m., officers read Herrington his Miranda rights, and he signs a waiver agreeing to give up his right-to-counsel in the interview with Baker and a lieutenant. Herrington acknowledges that he had a casual relationship with Lee and says that on the morning of July 8, he went to Walmart to buy duct tape before going on a run.
As Baker and his lieutenant are interviewing Herrington, other officers execute a search warrant on his apartment, obtaining several items including his MacBook, keys, and a pair of dark-colored shorts. Officers also seize a Walmart receipt that shows Herrington bought duct tape at 6:41 a.m. The DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office walks its “cadaver dogs” – K-9s trained to identify the smell of a dead body – through Herrington’s apartment. The dogs “alert” three times in Herrington’s bedroom and once in the living room area.
During the preliminary hearing, Herrington’s attorney, state Rep. Kevin Horan, repeatedly asked Baker if OPD had reviewed the training DeSoto County gives its cadaver dogs or checked to see if the dogs had ever before identified the smell of a dead body. Baker said that he had not.
The dogs also alert during a search of Herrington’s car, and an OPD technician finds blonde hair near the driver’s seat and back passenger seat. In the trunk, Baker testified that an OPD technician found bodily fluid in the shape of a footprint but did not specify what kind.
Police also bring in for questioning the driver of the Kia Optima who says that he was driving on Molly Barr Trails the morning of July 8 when he saw Herrington jogging. The driver says that Herrington told him he was “gassed” from a run and needed a ride back to his apartment.
Baker gets an affidavit for Herrington’s arrest, and he’s booked into the Lafayette County Detention Center around 8:15 p.m.
July 25 and 26
OPD expands its search for Lee’s remains to Grenada County and takes possession of Herrington’s box truck in Oxford.
July 27
OPD receives a forensic copy of Herrington’s MacBook that shows his Google search history. The forensic copy shows that on July 7, Herrington had googled flights from Dallas to Singapore. That night, he looked at a Twitter profile titled #TransLivesMatter that posts pornographic videos of trans people.
The copy also showed that Herrington was looking at Lee’s Twitter page at 5:21 a.m., a few minutes after he first messaged Lee on Snapchat.At 5:56 a.m., minutes afterLee messaged Herrington he was on his way, the copy shows that Herrington searched “how long does it take to strangle someone gabby petito,” then “does pre workout boost testosterone.”
OPD also obtains video from Walmart showing Herrington viewing garbage cans shortly before purchasing duct tape at 6:41 a.m.
July 29
Police search Herrington’s parent’s house in Grenada after getting a search warrant. Officers also obtain video footage of Herrington retrieving a long-handle shovel and wheelbarrow from his parent’s house and putting it into the back of the box truck.
The financially struggling Greenwood Leflore Hospital on Monday moved hospital patients to other facilities and closed clinics as the result of a “defective sewage line,” the hospital announced in a Facebook post.
It’s unclear how many total patients were moved and discharged. Ten people, including those in the hospital’s ICU, were transferred to the University of Mississippi Medical Center Grenada, about 45 minutes away, said Marc Rolph, a spokesman for UMMC.
Mississippi MED-COM, the emergency communications center housed at UMMC, assisted in finding beds elsewhere for the admitted patients at the 208-bed hospital.
A hospital employee who spoke to Mississippi Today on the condition that her name not be used said there has been an “extremely foul odor filling the elevators and certain other areas in the hospital” for several days now.
“Greenwood Leflore Hospital continues to experience a hospital-wide issue with a defective sewage line,” the hospital posted on Facebook after 4 p.m. Monday. “Currently we are discharging or transferring all inpatients. For the safety of our patients and staff, until further notice we are canceling surgeries and outpatient testing.”
In the first post about the issue, around mid-morning, the hospital said it was “assessing the situation with our inpatients.”
Hospital spokeswoman Christine Hemphill did not immediately return a call requesting comment Monday night.
Dr. Roderick Givens, who practices radiation oncology at the hospital, was among the doctors whose clinics were forced to close because of the sewage issue. He said that hospital leadership had told a group of physicians in a briefing around lunch time that the problem was a leak somewhere underneath the hospital, which hadn’t been located as of the briefing.
“They’re closing the hospital until that can be located, contained and everybody’s safe, because obviously you don’t want to have a hospital facility that’s got the odor as well as the potential hazard from a bacteria with a sewer line potentially affecting inpatients as well as outpatients,” he said.
The Greenwood Commonwealth reported earlier Monday that the hospital said it did not have a timeline for reopening.
At least two state agencies were contacted about the event. The state health department supported the hospital during patient evacuation, said Jim Craig, the department’s senior deputy and director of health protection.
“MSDH staff were on scene coordinating information sharing on hospital status, evacuation status, and resource needs to support the evacuation,” the department said in an email. “MSDH Division of Health Facilities Licensure and Certification provided necessary notifications to CMS and will work to ensure the facility is cleared for occupancy once repairs are complete.”
Malary White, chief communications officer at the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said MEMA had been alerted but had not sent any personnel or equipment to the scene.
“We monitor the situation, in case the county gets overwhelmed we step in to help (by request),” she said.
One facet of the sewage problem was a blockage that also affected surrounding streets. Eddie Curry, the former director of Greenwood Wastewater Treatment, was at the hospital Monday to help out. He said the crew used a high-pressure hose to clear the pipe blockage. Then workers used a vacuum truck to clean some of the debris and waste left behind.
“Grease or rags, and or anything could get here and build up in the mouth of that pipe and it could stop it, won’t let it flow,” he said. “But once you take the sewage truck, go in and put water pressure to it, it unclogs it. You may not have trouble for the next three or four years.”
Curry said as far as he was concerned, the problem was fixed when he left in the afternoon.
Eddie Payne, the current Wastewater Treatment Director, said he wasn’t aware of a leak underneath the hospital. Sewage or dirty water may have backed up while the pipes were blocked, requiring clean-up work after the blockage was cleared.
The relationship between the blockage and the hospital’s closure was not clear Monday night, but a leak may have been caused by pressure building up in the pipes as a result of the blockage.
Givens said his patients’ treatment won’t be interrupted if the hospital closure lasts a few days or so.
“If it’s a long-term problem then we’ll have to look at some other measures, for example if we have to get them treated at another facility or something like that,” he said. “But I’m anticipating that we should be back and up and running within a couple of days.”
The hospital, which is jointly owned by Leflore County and the city of Greenwood, laid off 30 people in May to offset losses during the pandemic. It announced in June that it is in talks with UMMC on a joint operation agreement.
“GLH began the process of seeking affiliation partners as the hospital emerged from the Delta and Omicron waves of the pandemic,” the hospital said in a press release. “Affiliation, particularly with a larger system like UMMC, the state’s only academic medical center and largest hospital, can result in cost efficiencies that are necessary to attain sustainable operations over the long term.”
How well did Mississippi respond to the COVID-19 pandemic? The health department is hiring an outside contractor to answer that question.
The contractor, who should start work in early November, will conduct interviews with people involved in a wide range of pandemic response efforts, from contact tracing and COVID testing to hospital operations and public information. They’ll prepare an “after-action report” that will reconstruct and analyze Mississippi’s response – including how well state and local agencies followed emergency response plans – and offer suggestions for improvement.
Department staff typically prepare after-action reports following disasters or public health emergencies. But because of the scope of the pandemic response, which lasted more than 800 days, the department is hiring a contractor this time, Jim Craig, senior deputy and director of health protection, said in a statement to Mississippi Today.
Craig said the report will be used to improve pandemic planning and preparedness. The department will use federal funds to pay the contractor.
Just shy of 13,000 Mississippians have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to health department data. Nearly 900,000 cases have been reported in the state.
Mississippi had the highest per capita number of deaths of any state in the country, with 427 deaths for every 100,000 people, according to the New York Times. The national average was 311.
A report by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund released in June ranked Mississippi’s pandemic response last among 50 states and the District of Columbia. Mississippi scored particularly poorly in premature deaths from treatable causes – ranking 51st – and out-of-pocket medical costs for employees.
Mississippi also saw the country’s highest percentage increase in the drug overdose death rate from 2019 to 2020, according to the Commonwealth Fund.
The report produced for the health department will take a closer look at the nuts and bolts of the agency’s pandemic response. The analysis will answer questions including:
“What happened? What was supposed to happen based on current plans, policies and procedures?
Was there a difference? What was the impact?
Do plans, policies, and procedures support activities and associated tasks?
Are MSDH responders familiar with these documents?”
According to the request for proposals, the state recently conducted feedback sessions with regional health department team members. The results of those sessions will be shared with the contractor chosen to write the report.
The 59-page request offers a sense of the scope of the state’s pandemic response, which involved thousands of people working at the health department, Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA), Mississippi Department of Human Services, the Mississippi State University Extension Service, the Board of Animal Health, the National Guard and the Department of Environmental Quality, as well as private contractors.
The state had operated 916 testing sites as of April 7, 2022 and processed over 3,200,000 PCR tests as of late April.
The contract will last until early November 2023 but may be renewed by the health department for an additional year.
The department also hired an outside contractor to evaluate its response to Hurricane Katrina.
“The lessons learned from the Katrina after-action report furthered the health and medical response to hurricanes in Mississippi,” Craig said.
