Democrats in the U.S. Congress are considering a way to offer health care insurance for low income Mississippians who have been denied coverage because of the refusal of the state’s political leadership to expand Medicaid.
The proposal would provide health care coverage to people who are below the federal poverty level (an individual making $12,880 per year or less) in the 12 primarily Southern states — including Mississippi — that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
Two million Americans could access health care coverage through the plan, with the bulk of those being in Texas, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, according to an analysis by Judith Solomon, a health policy analyst with the Washington-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
In Mississippi, studies have estimated that between 200,000 and 300,000 primarily working Mississippians could qualify for coverage if the state would expand Medicaid.
“The problem is the 12 states that refuse to expand despite overwhelming evidence of the benefits of expansion of coverage to people, state budgets and health care providers,” Solomon said. “Given it’s been seven years since expansion took effect and huge financial incentives in the American Rescue Plan Act haven’t moved any states into the expansion column, this is the only way to get coverage to those who have been left out.”
The congressional proposal is being considered as part of the budget reconciliation bill that Congress is currently negotiating. The initial budget plan was $3.5 trillion, which was met with intense pushback by Republicans and moderate Democrats.
The proposal is tied up in political negotiations, and it’s possible it will not make the final bill. Southern Democrats, in particular, are lobbying their party’s leadership for the workaround to Medicaid expansion in the 12 non-expansion states. But some Democrats in states that have already expanded Medicaid are arguing that if concessions must be made in the final budget bill, they would prefer to focus on other aspects of the sweeping bill — namely providing free dental, vision and hearing coverage to seniors across income levels.
Health care is a chief policy platform of Democrats across the nation, and considering how best to move forward on providing coverage to more Americans is at the forefront of the debate. But because most of the 12 states are controlled by Republicans, and Democrats typically lose elections in those states, there is tension within the party ranks about whether the Medicaid expansion workaround is politically advantageous.
If Mississippi were to expand Medicaid under current law, the federal government would pay 90% of the health care costs with the state paying the remainder. Gov. Tate Reeves, House Speaker Philip Gunn and others have argued Mississippi cannot afford the costs of expanding Medicaid, though multiple studies — including one last week from the Mississippi state economist — have found that the expansion with the infusion of billions of dollars in federal funds would actually increase state revenue collections.
Under the proposal being considered by federal lawmakers, Mississippi would not be required to provide any matching funds.
“I imagine if there was any program like that, the governor and attorney general (Lynn Fitch) would sue to try to keep us from getting the money,” surmised Senate Public Health Committee Chair Hob Bryan, D-Amory, who has been a proponent of Medicaid expansion.
The federal American Rescue Plan, passed earlier this year as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, provides additional incentive for Mississippi to expand Medicaid, offering more than $600 million over a two-year period. The other non-expansion states received similar incentives as part of the American Rescue Plan. Presumably, because the 12 states refused to take advantage of those incentives, congressional leadership is developing the workaround to provide coverages to the uninsured in those states.
As the proposal is currently written, people who earn under the federal poverty line could obtain insurance on the Healthcare Marketplace. People, based on their income level, receive federal subsides to help pay for their marketplace policies.
Under current law, people who earn below the federal poverty level do not qualify for marketplace policies.
Also under the proposal, those falling below the federal poverty level could obtain the insurance on the marketplace at no cost to them. And then in 2025, the people would transition to a Medicaid program run solely by the federal government.
If passed, states currently in the Medicaid expansion program could opt out of their current program and rely on the solely federal program, but they would have to provide a payment to the federal government.
“I hope the expansion states that have embraced expansion and seen its benefits will understand that this is critical to do,” Solomon said.
The Board of Trustees of the Institutions of Higher Learning voted last week to ban public universities from requiring the COVID-19 vaccine for students, faculty and staff. The move appears to make it the first higher education governing board in the country to do so.
Mississippi’s eight public universities are now “prohibited by the Board from implementing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate as a condition of employment or enrollment except for clinical settings,” Caron Blanton, IHL’s spokesperson, wrote in an email Friday.
The vote, held without notice at the boards’ annual retreat two-and-a-half hours from Jackson, came as a surprise to many faculty and staff.
For months, faculty urged Mississippi universities to join the hundreds of other colleges across the country that have mandated the COVID vaccine. But administrators, namely those at Mississippi State University and University of Mississippi, insisted they did not have that authority even though IHL said they did. In August, Blanton told Mississippi Today that IHL’s immunization policy “represents the minimum requirements that must be enforced by the universities. Additional requirements are not prohibited.”
That’s no longer the case with this new vote, which appears to be the first time a higher ed board has moved to ban a COVID vaccine mandate.
“The decision by the Mississippi Board of Trustees is a slap in the face to all faculty and students calling for basic public health protections to ensure safe learning environments in their classrooms and on campus,” Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, told Mississippi Today in a statement.
University of Mississippi Medical Center announced last month it will require all students and employees to be fully vaccinated by Nov. 1.
UMMC spokesperson Patrice Guilfoyle told Mississippi Today on Monday that “it is our understanding what when the IHL board originally voted, they excluded UMMC, and because we are a clinical sciences campus, it does not impact our policy. It is our understanding that our campus is part of the clinical settings.”
After 19 minutes of discussion, Trustee Chip Morgan, a real estate lawyer, made a motion for the board to vote on.
“I will leave it to the staff to provide the exact language,” Morgan said, “but I’d like for us to point out our support for the vaccine, and that it is by far and away the best protection we have for our schools.
“And with the caveat of the medical center, and I presume … some of the nursing programs are gonna have clinical interaction,” he continued, “but other than that, I think we ought to say at this time, it’s our view that we would not impose any requirement on the universities to mandate vaccination.”
At a faculty senate meeting at MSU two weeks later, David Shaw, the provost, fielded repeated questions from professors about whether IHL’s vote left the door open for individual universities to require the COVID vaccine. To their surprise, Shaw pointed to the August vote asproof of why the university could not mandate the vaccine.
The overwhelming vote by the governing board against vaccine mandates, Shaw said, amounted to a “very clear directive” to universities.
This left the faculty confused — the vote had not seemed to change IHL’s stance on whether individual universities could impose vaccine mandates on their own.
“Could you please get the legal counsel of either IHL or the university to explain to us why we need authority from IHL in order to institute this,” one faculty member asked Shaw at the meeting.
Confusion deepened last week when the provost emailed MSU faculty with an update on IHL policy.
In the email, Shaw told faculty the minutes of the August IHL meeting showed the board had passed a motion stating that “institutions are directed to refrain from mandating the COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of enrollment or employment.”
That was different from what a recording of the meeting showed IHL had voted on.
By Friday morning, though, IHL took a new vote to confirm the policy as Shaw’s email described it.
A recording of that vote and any discussion is not available because the vote took place during the board’s annual retreat, which this year was held in West Point in a room that “did not have the technical capabilities for webcasting,” Blanton told Mississippi Today.
Across the country, a handful of state legislatures and governors have prohibited public entities from requiring the vaccine. Seven states, for example, have banned vaccine requirements for state workers, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. But the IHL appears to be the first higher ed board to institute a state-wide ban.
“The Board acknowledges that vaccinations are the safe and effective way to end the pandemic but will not institute a vaccine mandate,” Mulvey said. “Instead, they are mandating that faculty put their health at risk in order to do their jobs. This is malpractice in board leadership that will lead to additional serious illness and death.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated after publication to include a quote from the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban on Dec. 1, providing what many believe could be the first opportunity for the conservative majority to widely limit access to abortion in America.
On Monday the court released its schedule for its October term, and will hear oral arguments for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in December. The case focuses on Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, which the Mississippi Legislature passed in 2018 and was immediately blocked by lower federal courts.
The case challenges Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that affirmed pregnant people have a constitutional right to receive an abortion. Mississippi’s case is a testing ground, the first reproductive rights case to be argued before the Supreme Court since Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed in 2020.
The case before the court is not the most restrictive ban passed in Mississippi. In 2019 the state Legislature passed a fetal heartbeat ban which prohibited abortion after six weeks, but it was struck down in an appelate court. The 15-week ban passed in 2018. State law currently prohibits abortions after 20 weeks in Mississippi, though the sole provider in the state only performs them up to 16 weeks.
Last month the Supreme Court allowed a Texas law to go into effect that prohibits abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
Oral arguments will be heard in person, but the courtroom will not be open to the public. The court said earlier this month that a live feed will be made available.
When repeatedly asked on national television why Mississippi led the nation in COVID-19 deaths per capita, Gov. Tate Reeves downplayed the statistic and refused to discuss what’s being done to address it, instead lashing out at Democratic President Joe Biden.
Reeves appeared Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper to discuss his response to the pandemic, particularly his opposition to Biden’s proposed vaccine mandate.
Reeves has previously stated that he plans to sue the federal government once the particulars of the vaccine mandate are released, a claim he reasserted during his Sunday appearance.
“If this president has the ability to mandate vaccines, what powers do we not grant this president? What does he not have the ability to do?….That’s not something that I’m willing to stand by and allow him to do. Obviously we have made it very clear that we are prepared to sue once we actually see the rule.”
Tapper repeatedly pressed Reeves on the high COVID death rate per capita in Mississippi, which last week rose to first in the nation, asking what steps Reeves was taking to address this.
“If Mississippi were its own country, you would be second in the world, only to Peru, in terms of deaths per capita,” Tapper said. “That’s a horrible, horrible, heartbreaking statistic. So, with all due respect, governor, your way is failing. Are you going to try to change anything to change this horrible statistic from what you’re doing already?”
Reeves did not directly answer the question and instead attempted to contextualize the statistic, pointing out that deaths are a lagging indicator and that case counts have fallen and total vaccinations have increased in Mississippi.
While daily death totals do often lag behind case counts and positivity rates in terms of measuring the prevalence of the virus at any given moment, Tapper was referencing the total number of deaths in Mississippi since the pandemic began — currently 9,270, according to the Mississippi Department of Health. It is this number, the total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic, for which Mississippi now leads the nation on a per capita basis.
Mississippi taking the top spot was the direct result of a disastrous August that pushed its health care system to the brink of collapse. The state’s caseload and hospitalization rates are still quite high, but have decreased significantly from the peaks seen in August. Over the past two weeks, new infections have decreased by 32% and hospitalizations have decreased by 23%.
While the number of vaccines administered each week did increase during the height of the delta variant’s presence in Mississippi, that number is currently trending downward. Currently, 42% of Mississippians are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
In the CNN interview, Reeves also repeatedly attempted to direct focus on other states, saying that he expected total deaths per capita to increase in other states that are currently experiencing a surge in cases and implying that Mississippi may not hold the top spot for long in terms of per capita deaths.
Tapper continued to ask Reeves about what changes he was making in Mississippi, and Reeves responded by repeating changes in virus caseload and vaccination rates in Mississippi. During the 11-minute interview, Reeves never discussed any changes that he had made in his decision-making as the leader of the pandemic response efforts.
A supervisor called Darlene Smith at her work-from-home office one afternoon this summer, wondering why she’d taken her 30-minute lunch break 30 minutes early.
She was changing her 6-month-old’s diaper and tending to her rambunctious 6-year-old.
“I thought I was about to lose my job,” Smith said.
Smith had been receiving child care assistance through the Mississippi Department of Human Services’ Child Care Payment Program for the last four years so she could hold a job.
In June, just a few months after her maternity leave ended, the agency put Smith through “redetermination” — essentially making her reapply for the program. It found her ineligible and abruptly ended her benefits.
Smith is one of thousands of Mississippi parents, according to a survey of child care centers, who have lost their child care certificate in recent months during the COVID-19 pandemic, even while the state hoards over half-a-billion in unspent federal child care dollars.
Typically, parents must prove they worked at least 25 hours every week in order to remain eligible for the assistance.
At her job as a customer service representative for an insurance company, where she answers calls and handles claims, Smith was working between 20 and 24 hours.
After Smith lost the voucher, she had to pull her daughter out of daycare, where the little girl was receiving uninterrupted attention. When they’re at home, Serenity, the 6-year-old, likes to rile up baby Martez, causing a squealing commotion.
“I don’t have time to see what’s going on ‘cause I’m on the phone,” Smith said. “You gotta answer all your calls. You’ll get in trouble if you don’t answer your calls.”
Mississippi had the option to suspend the certificate program’s regular rules, including redetermination, during the ongoing health and economic crisis.
But the state chose not to, straining both low-income households and the child care centers whose budgets rely on the government subsidy.
“We’ve lost a lot of children because of redetermination,” said Patricia Young, owner of School of Champions Development & Learning Academy in Itta Bena. “Parents have not had that opportunity or chance to get back to work, to even look for a job. That’s really been hard.”
Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative, which conducted the recent survey, estimates that between 3,600 and 4,100 parents lost their assistance during the recent redetermination process, which could translate to up to 7,300 children now lacking childcare.
As Mississippi’s welfare department has kicked parents off the child care voucher, Young said she’s watched her center’s revenue decrease and her blood pressure skyrocket.
At the same time, she’s taken on more responsibility because kids who used to attend her center part-time are there all day conducting virtual learning as the public schools navigate COVID-19.
“They’re opening and closing and opening and closing because of the virus,” Young said.
In Itta Bena, nearly half the residents live in poverty and the median household income is just over $17,000, so Young’s center relies on the government subsidy to stay in business.
“The (parents) I have are working at factories or food plants or at McDonalds. They cannot afford to pay for child care,” Young said. “That’s the purpose that I was thinking the certificate program was for, to help those parents who cannot otherwise afford child care.”
Mississippi has some of the least expensive child care costs in the nation, meaning providers are paid less here, leading to lower pay for child care workers and limited resources for early childhood development inside the centers.
Even so, economic conditions in Mississippi mean that a typical family still cannot afford care, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services standards, and must spend 22% of its income on child care.
The child care voucher, a critical work support for low-income families, is not extra cash in a parent’s pocket, but ensures kids have a safe place to go with supervision and socialization while they are at work.
The child care division’s COVID-19 emergency policy, filed in April of 2020, suspended work requirements for the child care program. It stated that once the governor determined child care was no longer in an emergency condition, clients would be given a 60 day period to begin searching for a job or enroll in school in order to remain eligible for the benefit.
But providers told Mississippi Today that the department offered them no warning.
“The child care providers had no clue. They woke up one morning, checked their email and had termination, termination, termination, termination, termination,” said Debbie Ellis, owner of child care center The Learning Tree in Greenwood. “… I cannot imagine the benefit to the state.”
Mississippi Department of Human Services did not respond to Mississippi Today’s requests for interviews or comment for this story, which began in August, by the time of publication. The agency plans to host a virtual public hearing to gather comments about policies within the Child Care Payment Program tomorrow, September 21st, at 11 a.m.
Darlene Smith watches her 6-year-old daughter Serenity play on the jungle gym at Freedom Ridge park in Ridgeland on Saturday, September 19, 2019. Smith, who just received a promotion at work, must juggle caring for her two children and working as a customer service representative for an insurance company. Credit: Anna Wolfe/Mississippi Today
The American Rescue Plan Act, enacted in March, provided a $15 billion supplement to the annual Child Care and Development Fund, which mainly funds the voucher program, and an additional $24 billion in child care stabilization grants for struggling providers. Mississippi received $200 million and $319 million, respectively, which it has yet to push out.
Carol Burnett, director of the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative, said the department has expressed reluctance to use the money to offer more vouchers because since the money is not permanent, parents may lose the benefit when the funding dries up.
“You don’t want to build up all this capacity and then not be able to sustain it,” Chad Allgood, director of MDHS’s Division of Early Childhood Care and Development, told PBS NewsHour during its series on child care that aired in July.
Burnett doesn’t buy it: “God forbid we serve another kid this year that we can’t serve four years from now when the money runs out,” she said.
The voucher has historically served just a fraction of the population, and Burnett estimates the program currently reaches roughly 25% of low-income children who need care. In the past, the state has chalked up the low number to federal funding shortfalls. Now, Burnett argues, the state has a chance to make a difference.
At the Sept. 9 meeting of the State Early Childhood Advisory Council, the group Gov. Tate Reeves appointed to advise him on early childhood education and child care, Allgood downplayed the magnitude of the department’s recent cash infusion.
“I think that will help somewhat, but it’s not the end-all answer. I think there’s still an issue of the expense of child care,” Allgood said. “And we do have subsidy assistance, but frankly, the normal funding that we get and even the additional money that we got to help provide subsidy, it’s not enough. It’s just not enough.”
He added: “We want to serve every family, you know, that’s eligible and that has a need, but the federal funding alone is not going to get it, not going to get us there.”
Providers complain that Allgood and DHS leadership are dragging their feet.
“Child care providers are closing their doors. Child care providers are being forced into quarantine without personal protective equipment, with over a half billion dollars sitting at DHS to stabilize existing businesses,” Ellis said.
Ellis said she expected more from the department and the child care division’s relatively new leadership, especially during the pandemic and unstable economy.
“But many are not surprised by the decisions that were made for redetermination,” Ellis said.
“Old school.”
At the recent State Early Childhood Advisory Council meeting, Allgood led a broad discussion about the status of early childhood in Mississippi.
“A very, very important question is, when we look at the access to these services, the experiences that the children and families are having as they’re accessing the services and the outcomes that are being provided through these services: Are they equitable?” Allgood said. “I think that’s going to be key. And I think ensuring equity across the board is something that we definitely need to make sure that we’re addressing within our early childhood system as a whole.”
The primary responsibility of Allgood’s division is to administer the federal Child Care Development Fund, the annual fund that supplies child care vouchers to low-income parents.
But in the nearly two-and-a-half hour meeting, Allgood made little mention of the state’s voucher program or how they planned to spend more than $500 million in extra child care dollars, nor did they discuss expanding the assistance to needy families.
Allgood did say the department plans to start accepting applications from child care centers for $319 million in direct stabilization grants on Oct. 1. That money goes directly to the providers. He did not provide any other specifics.
“We are working very diligently to try to get those out,” Allgood said. “What we have run up against is the federal government, they issued the money, but then the guidance came later. And so we have had to sort of, you know, plan as we go and we’ve asked questions and, you know, we’re still getting guidance from the feds.”
“Every single penny of that money will go directly to child care,” he added.
At least fourteen states have already opened stabilization grant applications according to the federal government and some, such as Illinois, began sending payments to providers as early as May.
“We’re way behind the implementation timeline,” said Burnett, who served as the state’s administrator of the Child Care Development Fund in the early 2000s.
Allgood said one hold up is that the department wants to train providers on how to track their spending.
“We, in turn, have to monitor child care providers on the use of the funding. If there’s a misuse of funding, inadvertently even, we do not want to have to go and recoup that money a year from now, that would be devastating,” Allgood said.
Providers have not received any information about what the stabilization grants to providers will look like — how much money they will be (Allgood called them “sizable”) or how they may be spent.
Burnett said she also worries about the scope of the grants.
“I think Mississippi is going to be really conservative in what — out of all the options that states can pick — Mississippi is going to choose,” Burnett said.
“I suspect we’re going to prioritize stuff over staff,” Burnett explained. “Bottles of bleach instead of wage stipends for workers.”
The department also hasn’t addressed the barriers parents face, such as the work requirement, in applying for child care assistance. Eight-in-10 child care centers say they serve parents who are eligible for the voucher but are unable to get approved, according to the recent survey.
Ellis said parents can be denied or terminated from the program for as little as having an expired driver’s license.
Another hurdle to receiving the voucher is the state’s requirement that low-income parents, usually single moms, use state-contracted attorneys to go after their child’s father in court for child support money.
Often, family advocates say, it’s not that a mother wants to shirk child support, but that she has her own working arrangement with the father and wants to avoid making waves.
Kassandra Fisher, owner of Agape Love Learning Center in Greenwood, said that the requirement can cause problems even for parents who are already participating in the child support program. She said she’s seen parents lose their voucher simply for failing to provide the proper proof.
“We don’t have an office for child support in Greenwood, it’s in Grenada. So that’s another problem for parents,” Fisher said. “If I’m working that Monday and I can’t afford to take off, trying to make sure I got my (25) hours and you’re telling me I gotta meet the child support requirements. I got to try to get to Grenada because I might call the phone up, and it’s just so many people calling on the phone, I might not reach nobody. See, that what’s going on.”
“It’s kind of hard to tell people that are struggling to work to take off to go try to get a child support letter if they can’t get nobody on the phone,” Fisher said.
Eight-in-10 surveyed providers say the child support requirement discourages parents from applying, and 73% say it results in denials for their clients — both of which translate to an estimated 9,700 to 11,100 children in centers who are unable to access the voucher because of the state’s demand.
Dana Kidd, former deputy administrator of economic assistance for Mississippi’s welfare agency, admitted to Mississippi Today in 2018 that the requirement put mothers in a difficult position, “but that’s our state policy and federal regulations.”
State statute does not mandate that the department impose child support requirements on child care recipients, according to legal experts hired by Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative.
But a few months ago, when Burnett visited Mississippi Department of Human Services Director Bob Anderson to discuss eliminating the extra burden, Burnett said Anderson denied that the requirement was a deterrent to any parents in need of the voucher.
“They’ve quit arguing now that they’re mandated by state law,” Burnett said. “Now they’re saying it’s just not a problem.”
The state doesn’t require recipients of other types of government aid — the kind that often benefits middle class or wealthier families — to enter the state’s child support system to qualify. The state does not, for instance, impose this requirement on families receiving state-funded college scholarships or the business executives who secure millions in incentives from the state each year.
Darlene Smith strolls through Freedom Ridge park in Ridgeland with her 9-month-old baby Martez on Saturday, September 19, 2021. Credit: Anna Wolfe/Mississippi Today
Burnett, who has advocated for working moms for over two decades, said the current state of child care in Mississippi isn’t just characterized by the state’s slow rolling out of federal grant funds; or its refusal to revisit the child support requirement; or its decision to redetermine eligibility during a pandemic; or its reluctance to use additional federal funding to supply more certificates.
“It’s all of it put together that results in parents that need child care not getting it,” Burnett said.
In Smith’s case, losing her child care — her punishment from the state for not working at least 25 hours — could have threatened her job altogether.
She’s thankful her employer has been understanding. Her daughter returned to school in August, relieving some of the stress of juggling two kids and her job at home all day.
Just recently, as Smith was considering picking up a second job to get more hours, the insurance company gave her a promotion, bumping her to around 40 hours a week. It’s a sign of progress for this single mom, recognition of her tact with customers.
Since the $12-an-hour job is currently remote, she’s making it work, however exhausting.
Evenings are harder now. Smith is still working when Serenity gets off the bus after school. If Martez is napping, it won’t be for long.
“She’ll have him all hyped up, so I’ll be like, ‘Lord have mercy,’” she said. “I need to get her after school care and I need to get him in day care. That will help out a lot.”
“That’s not going to be possible without the voucher,” she added.
Child care centers say it can take 60 days for eligible applicants to be approved.
And Smith’s employer could call her back to the office any day now.
UPDATE: Two-and-a-half hours after publication of this story, Mississippi Department of Human Services supplied Mississippi Today with the following statement:
Parents and childcare providers were notified in February 2021, that redetermination would be put back in place beginning April 2021. Additionally, per our policy, parents receive a 60-day notification and 30-day follow-up notification that their case is up for redetermination with instructions for completing the process. Childcare providers receive a 30-day notice and have access to the Childcare Provider Portal, which allows them to review all certificate information, including redetermination deadlines, at any time. While providers did not receive a written notification, as parents do, that information appears in the provider portal when the family’s case enters the redetermination period 60 days prior to their certificate/voucher end date.
MDHS does not have a waitlist for certificates/vouchers. We are processing applications, and any families that meet eligibility requirements receive a certificate/voucher for 12 months per ECCD policy. Federal eligibility criteria limit MDHS. For example, a household cannot exceed 85% of the state median income to be eligible for certificates/vouchers.
Parents were notified via email which is how the Childcare Division handles beneficiary communication. Childcare providers were also notified in monthly Zoom information sharing session. Childcare providers have access to the Childcare Provider Portal regarding any of the children they care for in real time. The provider portal allows for a more secure transmission of children’s information in real-time to childcare providers. When certificates are up for redetermination, the notification shares the next steps to complete the redetermination
ECCD provides an average of 20-22,000 children access to childcare each month.
ECCD issued temporary, 90-day emergency certificates to additional families who had never qualified for childcare vouchers during the pandemic. Each of these emergency voucher families were given the opportunity to see if they would qualify for the program moving forward. Families in the pandemic related emergency certificates were eligible to apply for the 12-month childcare certificate. Emergency certificates reached their monthly peak in September 2020 with over 4,600. This is in addition to the 20-22,000 children enrolled in the traditional certificate program.
Due to new Federal guidelines regarding the second round of stimulus funding (ARP) state that monies from ARP cannot be for the same purpose from CARES. Due to staffing levels, we want to ensure accountability of Cares Act funds; we are trying to ensure reports are received before the 2nd round of funding so it will not be problematic to the childcare providers from an accountability standpoint. To date, ECCD is still awaiting reports from over 300 childcare providers. Providers cannot receive ARP Stabilization Grants until their CARES funding reports have been filed. We believe that this policy is in the best interest of the providers and the state of Mississippi as the trustee of the stimulus funds.
The Federal government requires childcare providers to be in good financial standing. Childcare centers must provide supporting documentation to show they are in good standing to receive additional funding from the ARP Stabilization Grants. ECCD distribution of ARP Stabilization Grants directly to Childcare providers will be exponentially more significant than the CARES Act Booster Shots.
Due to staffing levels, we want to ensure accountability of all Cares Act funds. ECCD is attempting to close out all open grants related to the CARES funding before opening the 2nd round of funding. To date, ECCD is still awaiting reports from over 300 childcare providers. Providers cannot receive ARP Stabilization Grants until their CARES funding reports have been filed with ECCD. We believe that this policy is in the best interest of the providers and the state of Mississippi as the trustee of the stimulus funds.
To date, all CARES Act money has been dispensed. None of the funds have come back from providers.
New policies put in place over the past year include:
1) Covering parent Copays for families at or below the poverty line amounting to between $800,000 – $1,000,000 in additional payments per month going to providers.
2) ECCD is also paying an enhanced rate of an additional 25% from April 2020 to December 2022;
3) Payments are based on enrollment, not attendance. If the child stays home, the providers will still get the funds for that child. This is a permanent policy change.
4) Removed child support as countable income when calculating eligibility for childcare vouchers. This goes into effect 10/1. This change will lower the income requirements.
MDHS has not had a waitlist in 4 years. (Editor’s note: Mississippi Department of Human Services reportedly cleared the Child Care Payment Program wait list in 2018, less than three years ago). We are serving every family that is eligible and applies that needs assistance.
MDHS is monitors all relief funding to (1) ensure we comply with all funding requirements;(2) ensure that the funding to sustain childcare providers stretches as far as it can reach.
To date, fourteen (14) states have activated the ARP funding. Most recently, Louisiana opened but ended up closing their distribution for unknown reasons.
In reference to the additional public hearing and policy changes. Public hearings are required by law to gather comments on policy changes. Policy manual update proposals were shared at the public hearing and posted online with an email address for written comments.
ECCD recently undertook a market survey from childcare providers
92% approval on how ECCD handled the pandemic CARES Funds.
Last year, ECCD spent 85% of discretionary funds on vouchers, 10 % higher than the federally mandated 75% of discretionary funds.
Once a child is qualified and the voucher is approved, it is good for 12 months. The parent is given a 60-day notice before the voucher eligibility expires. They will need to be verified. During Covid, the Feds temporarily waived the CCDF redetermination. As of April 2021, redetermination is back in place unless the feds waive the requirement again.
MDHS does not have a waitlist for certificates/vouchers. We are processing applications, and any families that meet eligibility requirements receive a certificate/voucher for 12 months per policy. MDHS is limited by federal requirements in terms of eligibility criteria. For example, a household cannot exceed 85% of the state median income to be eligible for certificates/vouchers. MDHS monitors all relief funding to (1) ensure we comply with all funding requirements and (2) ensure we’re using the funding to sustain childcare providers for as long as possible. CCDF, once we have a parent and voucher is given out is good for 12 months. The parent is given a 60- day notice before the voucher eligibility. They will need to be verified. During Covid, the Feds temporarily waived the CCDF redetermination, but now the CCDF determination is required unless we request a waiver from the Feds.
In Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson formed a committee of executive branch and legislative leaders to plan spending the state’s $1.5 billion in American Rescue Plan Act money. He directed them to include community, private sector and nonprofit leaders in decisions.
Tennessee created a task force that has held public meetings, and the state has already earmarked $1.35 billion of its COVID-19 stimulus money for water and sewerage infrastructure and $500 million for broadband expansion. These plans include matching grant programs for local governments and subsidies for qualified households for internet service. Tennessee also launched a support program to help local governments administer funds they are receiving separately and hired a consultant to do “pre-audit” checks that money is being properly spent.
Florida and Louisiana have already allocated millions in ARPA funds to help their tourism industries. Louisiana earmarked $300 million for local governments for water and sewerage. Florida is providing $1,000 bonuses to first responders, teachers and others who have soldiered on through the pandemic and child care assistance for health care workers.
At least 32 states have begun allocating ARPA funds, and others are actively seeking input and planning how best to use the money.
But Mississippi’s leadership, for the most part, has procrastinated on planning or spending the $1.8 billion coming directly to the state, half of which has been sitting in the state’s coffers for months. To date, there has been little planning or coordination among state leaders, or solicitation of input from communities. The money has a 2024 deadline for allocating it and a 2026 deadline for spending.
Of the state’s three top leaders, only Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has offered any broad plan or actively sought input on ARPA spending. He’s toured the state for months, meeting with dozens of local government boards, business, healthcare and other groups. He’s proposed allocating as much as $900 million of the state-controlled money to match the $900 million local governments are receiving directly from the act. Hosemann says state and local governments should carefully plan and spend the money on projects “that have an impact not for one or two years, but one or two generations.”
But the other leaders do not appear sold on Hosemann’s plan, or to have any major plans of their own.
Gov. Tate Reeves has scarcely mentioned the money. As in most states, lawmakers in Mississippi will have the ultimate say on spending it. But other states’ governors have submitted their own plans or are working with legislative leaders on it. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pitched his plans for spending portions of ARPA to lawmakers in mid-March, shortly after the federal act was signed into law. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has been meeting with legislative leaders on ARPA spending, in part to figure out if the money could be used to help solve the state’s prison crisis.
With a previous $1.2 billion round of federal COVID-19 relief money to states, Reeves created a “Restart Mississippi” task force of mostly business leaders (many of whom were top campaign donors) to help plan spending and policy. But after he lost a fight with the Legislature over control of the money, the task force didn’t meet and went dormant. Reeves, who would have to sign off on much of the Legislature’s ARPA spending, has not publicly offered any specific plans or policy.
Last week, he told WLOX-TV on the Coast that he expects his annual budget recommendation to the Legislature in November will include his proposals for spending the federal money. In general, he said the bulk of the money should be spent on infrastructure such as water and sewerage.
House Speaker Philip Gunn likewise has not publicly offered any major spending or policy plans for ARPA money. He recently said he has some of his legislative team working on plans, but noted, “the good news here is we do have until 2024 to make those decisions.”
Gunn did join with Hosemann recently in stating that lawmakers stood ready to come into special legislative session — if Gov. Reeves would call one — to help with the summer’s spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths, to spend ARPA or other funds to help the hospital crisis. Both Hosemann and Gunn said the money could help pay nurses more and help alleviate a nurse shortage. But Reeves has said such a session wasn’t necessary as other emergency funds were available to shore up hospital operations. Reeves used these emergency federal funds to hire out-of-state nurses under contract.
In his WLOX appearance last week, however, Reeves said that if he had been able to control the money instead of the Legislature, he could already have paid the “health care heroes” Mississippi nurses with the funds.
The legislative leadership over the summer has been mostly focused on medical marijuana, Gunn’s proposal to eliminate the state’s personal income tax and a teacher pay raise. Lawmakers held summer committee hearings on these issues, but none on the unprecedented ARPA money flowing to state and local governments.
Some have questioned the state leadership’s hang-fire on ARPA planning and spending.
“What are we waiting on?” House Minority Leader Robert Johnson III, D-Natchez, said recently. “… This will take time to do it right. We at least need a special session for planning, or we at least need to be having some meetings.”
Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, have both called for Reeves to call a special session to deal with ongoing pandemic issues and ARPA spending. Reeves has said he has no intention of calling such a session. His office did not respond to a recent request to discuss the challenges of administering ARPA and other federal pandemic funds.
It would appear lawmakers will wait until their regular session, which begins in early January 2022, to ponder ARPA spending. The Legislature faces many major issues and chores for that session, including decennial redistricting, the income tax elimination proposal and others. Some observers have questioned whether there is too much on the Legislature’s plate, and whether this will hamper proper planning and administration of the spending. Such delays in planning could also thwart any efforts at public and community input into the spending.
Gunn has said lawmakers need to be “very methodical” on spending the ARPA funds and noted, “We do have the luxury of time” with spending deadlines.
While the Legislature is used to spending the state’s money, it is not equipped to manage that spending down the line and is constitutionally prohibited from many of those functions. A coordinated effort with the governor’s office and myriad state agencies will be required, but there has been a lack of communication and cooperation between legislative leaders and Reeves during this administration.
It would also be nice for communities — the public — and state business leaders to have some say in how such unprecedented largesse of tax dollars is allocated. Mississippi has numerous problems like poverty, poor health and health care, and lagging education outcomes for which the extra money could be a godsend. But the plethora of needs could also make the task of where to direct spending more daunting.
It would appear this unprecedented amount of money flowing to Mississippi and other states will bring unprecedented challenges for its planning and oversight. And time is wasting.
Mississippi Today hosted a virtual town hall last week with key state leaders including Dr. Dan Edney, chief health officer at the Mississippi Department of Health, Dr. LouAnn Woodward, chief executive of University of Mississippi Medical Center, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. We also heard from several key education leaders.
Rita Brent: Greetings everyone. My name is Rita Brent, also known as that girl from the car commercials. Today, I come to you as a proud native of Jackson, Mississippi, arguably the city with fewer potholes than ever before. I also come to you as a lover of journalism and truth. Therefore it is my honor and pleasure to officially welcome you to Mississippi Today’s COVID Community Town Hall.
Considering there Is a delta variant on the loose, Mississippi Today thought it would be best to bring this event to you virtually unless we create a new delta Loki variant that even Marvel universe can’t contain. “Why is this event necessary,” you might be asking. Well, because things are so uncertain I considered wearing a mask to deliver this message to you, and I’m in a hotel room. I mean, I can’t risk someone sneezing through the screen and it somehow reaches me through, I don’t know, 5G. Of course that’s highly unlikely, but exactly why Mississippi Today is taking the initiative to dispel myths during this critical time and provide a sense of understanding with advice from trustworthy experts.
As much as we all love Google, our 12 minutes of random research doesn’t negate or supersede the decades of dedicated work medical experts have contributed to be able to guide us through these challenging times. The truth of the matter is this pandemic has caused great devastation and it’s gone on longer than a Chick-fil-A drive-thru line.
None of us expected it to, and if you’re not good with eye and forehead recognition, I’m sure this mask thing is beyond frustrating for you. Is that Marshall Ramsey? No, that was not his eyebrows. A year and a half later, there are still questions to be answered, like is one vaccine more effective than the other? Will orange juice and prayers prevent me from getting the virus? Is COVID-19 now 21?
That’s why it’s behaving so wildly that Jeff Bezos social distanced while floating in space on his expensive adult field trip. Thankfully, Mississippi Today cares about your concerns, your comments, but most importantly, your wellbeing. Oh, and a side note, as a general rule, don’t comment something unbecoming on social media, unless you’re willing to file for unemployment.
All right. Today’s town hall is meant to give you confidence, clarity, and maybe even relief. We hear a lot of things on the internet and the streets, but today, Mississippi Today is putting knowledge and honesty at the forefront, so you can believe in truth again. Just like I believe in Coach Prime and those 2-0 tigers at my alma mater Jackson State University, #TheeILove, I think I speak for many of us when I say we just want to make tailgating great again. The time has come to put on your best hand sanitizer, the kind that dries fast and isn’t all gooey, perk up your listening ears and employ your critical thinking skills as a Mississippi Today presents to you a COVID Community Town Hall.
May you leave more informed than you came. Then after this town hall, be smart, be safe and let’s continue to preserve the art of journalism and humanity. Together we can heal as a people and get back to the joys of life. My name is Rita Brent, and as we say at my home church, you are welcome, welcome, welcome.
Adam Ganucheau: Wow. What a welcome from Rita Brent, just such a great Mississippian. My name is Adam Ganucheau. I’m the editor-in-chief here at Mississippi Today, and it’s truly a pleasure to be here with you all. We hope this panel with some of Mississippi’s leading healthcare and education experts will provide some information you need to ease the difficulty and confusion of this challenging time. And as we know, this really is a challenging time. We’re coming down from our fourth wave of the COVID pandemic, but it’s still very much a threat to everyone in our. During the month of August alone, the delta variant really just decimated our state’s hospital system.
Our state’s medical centers were so full that tent hospitals had to be erected in parking garages to care for COVID patients. ICU beds are still difficult to come by and our frontline workers, the doctors and nurses across Mississippi, are so very tired. And while COVID case loads were breaking daily and weekly records in Mississippi in August, the state’s public schools went back into session.
Many districts didn’t initially have mask mandates to begin the year, but were forced to implement them in a matter of days to stop the quick spread of the virus among students and teachers. Some schools had to switch to a combination of virtual and in-person learning, and others had to close for completely for a little while.
We’ve heard horror stories from inside schools, teachers and parents being scared about their health and their wellbeing. Students are missing out in some cases on vital in-person learning, and administrators have sometimes been at a loss of how to move forward without statewide guidance. And of course we know that plenty of schools, teachers, administrators, and parents are making the most out of a difficult situation and continuing to ensure that we provide great in-person instruction to our children.
We’re going to touch on this and a lot more within the next hour. But before we get started, I want to give a very quick shout out to the sponsors of this event. Thanks so much to the Delta Health Alliance and The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi for their help in making this event possible.
Now I’m so pleased to help kick the event off with Byron Brown, a news anchor at WJTV12 here in Jackson. Byron, thank you so much for being here today.
Byron Brown: Adam, thank you for having me, and it’s great to be here. We want to begin by introducing our first two panelists. Dr. Dan Edney is the chief medical officer at the Mississippi State Department of Health, the agency managing the state’s COVID-19 response, and also Delbert Hosemann, Mississippi’s lieutenant, governor and the top officer in Mississippi state senate. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us this afternoon.
Well, Dr. Edney let’s get right to it. Where do we stand right now with the delta variant across the state of Mississippi?
Dr. Dan Edney: Well, Byron, we’re still reporting very high numbers. Today we reported over 2,300 new cases. Thankfully, it looks like we’re reaching a plateau ,and we’ve come off the highest zenith that we had previously, where it was 4-5,000 new cases, but it has not started to come down the backside of this wave yet, and we don’t know how long we’ll be at this plateau.
Our hospitals are doing better. We’re having fewer hospitalizations, thankfully, and fewer cases in the hospital, but we still have 1,100 COVID patients statewide in Mississippi in the hospitals. But our ICUs, as Adam said, are still critically full. It’s very difficult to transfer to higher levels of care throughout Mississippi .Today, we had 390 in the ICU, which is very high number for us and still running about 280 patients on the ventilators, which again, those are extremely high numbers.
Byron Brown:Dr. Edney, for anyone watching or listening who doubts the effectiveness of a COVID vaccine, what do you say to them?
Dr. Dan Edney: Well, all you have to do is look at what’s happening through the delta variant tsunami. If you look at the total number of cases, only 2% of these cases over 2,000 a day are vaccinated. The 98% are unvaccinated. The number in the hospital where we’re running about 12% that are vaccinated.
So the vaccine is not perfect. It was never reported to be perfect, but it’s very effective as you can see, you know, the vast majority in the hospital are unvaccinated. And then our deaths, unfortunately running too high, but only 13% of those deaths are among the vaccinated. And virtually all of those are over 65 with comorbidities.
So the delta wave really has been a wave that’s hit the unvaccinated very hard and has hit younger populations including our children.
Adam Ganucheau: Lieutenant Governor Hosemann, we have a couple questions for you about COVID relief spending and the state response to the virus. But before that, I want to ask you about your own experience with contracting COVID-19. As you’ve discussed before, you had a pretty bad experience it sounds like with the virus, and it seems like perhaps that’s inspired you to do several things, including becoming a public advocate for getting the vaccine.
Can you tell us just a little bit about what your experience was with COVID and whether or not that’s kind of shaped how you’ve led in the months and weeks since then?
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann: Well I usually don’t talk about personal health stuff, but I’m happy to talk about it this time. Right after our last session, we had to do the budget June the 30th of last year.
We contracted COVID. I guess it was from the House of Representatives. Certainly my senators wouldn’t have given it to me. So when we got sick, we got really ill. And as you probably know, I’ve run marathons, New York marathon and all this other, and I’m a regular exerciser, let me put it that way. And my goal some days was to try to walk a hundred steps, and many days it was difficult to do so, just a devastating thing. What clearly bothers so much of us— and we were looking at an article about this in one of the papers today— was about what happens post. You know, you say you get over COVID, a lot of times you don’t get over COVID. There are body aches, lungs, hearts, minds, foggy, and a lot of things Dr. Edney and others would be more, much more qualified to talk about. But I think all of us that are COVID survivors really wonder a little bit about what the long term consequences are. It is very difficult to say what they are at this particular point in time. It was clear to me. You know, I used to run three or four miles, and I couldn’t run around the block, you know, a month later.
So it takes a while to get over that and what those long-term ramifications are. LouAnn Woodward and her research team will find out at some point, but you’re right. It effected my particular stance on having you look at your health provider and not some green dots on the screen to give you your health information. Dr. Edney used to actually treat my own mother. Dr. Edney cares about whether you live or die or not. The internet, the little green guys, don’t give a damn one way or the other. So it’s amazing to me that people rely on such a non-human event to make a medical decision about themselves, and I’m very hopeful that people will look at what’s going on. And we have had an upswing, thank goodness, in vaccinations, and look at what they’re doing. Talk to their doctor or their healthcare provider and then make an intelligent decision, not one based on what happened to somebody, to a friend somewhere else.
Adam Ganucheau: Sure. Before today’s event, we asked readers and viewers just to submit some questions for all the experts that you’ll hear from today.
I want to dive into a couple of those questions, and Lieutenant Governor Hosemann, I want to start with you. A couple readers asked us about the spending of federal funds. I know that’s sort of right up your alley. You’ve done a lot of work the last few weeks, traveling across the state, trying to decide, you know, how Mississippians want those federal funds to be spent. A two-part question: Can you just briefly recap for us what’s been spent in terms of federal funding, stimulus funding so far to this point? And then the second part is what are you thinking about the next round of federal money, and what do you think that should be spent on?
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann: You really have to look at this as three different tranches. The first was the CARES Act money that we got a year ago, and we put $130 million in healthcare to start.
Then as we realized, not all of the money we put in other other things like business incentives and whatnot were not claimed by small business. We moved $10 million to ICU and negative pressure rooms, all of which by the way were occupied. So thank goodness we did that. The second round of that is coming out now allows for us to spend money on water and sewer, broadband, and some on healthcare expenses and mental health.
So that will be the ones $900 million we got and then $900 million to cities and counties got, those will be going forward next year in January. And we’re asking our cities and counties— you’re right. I’ve been out. I think I’ve been in 50 counties actually, where we go out and ask them what they need.
“Please do your planning. This is your planning for the future. And then the legislature is going to address additional funding for the things that you think are important to your community.” Some of those will include healthcare. We’re also looking at one of the things that was mentioned clearly on the start of the program, which is the fact that our nurses are being lured away with additional funds.
I talked to one hospital yesterday, and he told me that it was going to cost $175 an hour to get a mobile nurse to come in, a traveling nurse, to come into his hospital. And he’s paying like $40-50 an hour, so it’s a huge gap to get that. So what we want to do here in the legislature is look at an interim funding for nurses to stay here in these 12 week periods that we’re going through with the virus.
And then what I really like to do is a program that we do for doctors, which is if we will pay some or all of your tuition to go to nursing school if you will agree to stay four years in the state. And we do that with doctors, and I just was at their award ceremony the other day. Fifty-seven physicians are actually doing that.
Fifty-seven are going to rural, that’s rural only or staying in rural Mississippi for an obligated period of time in the hopes that they’ll stay there throughout their career. I think the same thing applies to the nursing profession. And I think you’ll see that coming out of this, out of this next tranche.
Byron Brown:Dr. Edney, I think we have a question from West Point. Are you concerned about the new variant of COVID-19, and how are we preparing for it to rival here in Mississippi?
Dr. Dan Edney: That’s a concern a lot of people have. Thankfully, lambda, which came before mu, is not showing to be much to worry about. Right now delta is taking all the oxygen out of the room, and there’s nowhere for a new variant to enter because delta is at the level of contagiousness as chicken pox, which is extremely high. One person infects eight to nine others. So right now there’s no room for mu or anything else to get in. The CDC is monitoring that closely, but it has not been labeled as a variant of concern at this point, but we’re watching it closely.
So right now it’s still all about delta. But the way to attack the variants is through vaccination. COVID is mutating because it’s transmitting too much and replicating too much. And the more that it transmits from person to person, the more opportunity it has to learn and get better. And so the way to do that is to get community immunity up and that’s either going to be through vaccination or it’s going to be recovering from COVID. But as you heard the lieutenant governor describe it, COVID is not something that you want to choose to get. Get your immunity the safer way and the way that’s easier to deal with. And that’s through vaccination; 2.2% mortality in Mississippi with our COVID cases. So you multiply that 2,300 by 2.2% and that’s how many will have succumb to COVID in about two to three weeks. So it’s just not worth the risk to get immunity naturally. Get vaccinated, which is far safer.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann: I want to add something to that. Just a couple of weeks ago, we buried a friend of mine, David in Vicksburg, Mississippi.Dr. Edney would know who that is. He was not vaccinated. Sixty-eight years old in great shape, worked out, ran in the national park, all of the kind of things that you would expect of someone to stay healthy. And he was not vaccinated. And his law partner told me that one of the last things he said to his three sons before COVID claimed him was, ” Please get vaccinated.”
So I will tell you I echo what Dr. Edney is saying. Why are we taking those kinds of chances, not only for ourselves, but our family, our friends, our coworkers, our people at the church, now? You know, when he talks about spreading it multiples of eight for every person, it’s exponential. And then the other thing that I don’t know that anybody’s talked about, Adam, is the economic loss to us.
And when I meet with these hospitals, it costs them $5,000-10,000 a day with these patients, and of course that comes from somewhere. It doesn’t come out of the air. It comes from the state, the federal government, or the hospitals themselves withdrawal and other things they would like to have done that they don’t do.
And then when you get into the economics of somebody not working, and then you get into the, I guess, really the elephant in the room, how do we sell businesses to come to Mississippi as the least vaccinated state? Is that our selling point? I don’t think so. So all of these have a multiplier effect, not just from the actual route to sell, but also from an economic effects that auto out from us here.
And I want to be real clear about that. This is a negative economically not only to you and your family, but to the whole state.
Adam Ganucheau: Well, Dr. Edney and Lieutenant Governor Hosemann, we could talk all day about this. We have a great panel coming up in just a few minutes.
I want to ask you all one quick question, and we only have about 60 seconds left with this first segment. So if y’all could split that up quickly, I’ll ask an easy question. What can we do about this? In your opinion, what can we do to help encourage Mississippians in the least vaccinated state in America, to your point governor, what can we do to spread the word and get these numbers looking a lot better?
Dr. Dan Edney: Well, it’s important to, in a non-judgmental loving fashion, talk to your friends and family about the importance of protecting yourself through vaccination. Or if you’re just not going to get vaccinated, then, you know, wear your mask and be appropriate and don’t take unnecessary risk until this is over and just understand, this is not over.
We still have a ways to go, but judging each other doesn’t get us anywhere. We need to be concerned about each other.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann: I think that was very well said. I don’t have anything to add to it. The state’s going to support our hospitals, our nurses, our doctors that are dealing with this and the families that are left behind.
But we would like for that to be minimal.
Adam Ganucheau: Sure. Well Dr. Edney and Lieutenant Governor Hosemann, thank you so much for being here with us. And Byron, thank you for being here too. I know you need to break away and get ready for the 12 news at five broadcast.
Byron Brown: Well, thank you very much. We will work and have much more highlights from this town hall on our evening newscast, and of course, we’re gonna have much more on Sunday’s Mississippi Insight on Sunday at 10:30. Thank you for having me, and I’m looking forward to hearing much more of the second half of the discussion.
Adam Ganucheau: So now I’m going to turn it over to my colleagues here at Mississippi Today, Kate Royals and Will Stribling, who are going to moderate the second panel of the evening.
Thank you so much for being here.
Kate Royals: Thank you, Adam. I’m Kate Royals. I’m an education reporter here at Mississippi Today, and I just want to say thank you all for being here and thanks for letting me be a part of it. Without any further ado, I’ll go ahead and get to some of our reader submitted questions.
And our first one is from Maggie Pooley in Ridgeland, and I think it’s probably a good one for Dr. Edney or Dr. Woodward. And it is: How effective are face masks really in schools?
Dr. Dan Edney: Well, masks work period, and we have proven that as we just had a large study that was reported demonstrating the effectiveness of masks. But all of us in healthcare can tell you, I mean, I think part of the reason I survived until I could be vaccinated was because of the ability of masks to protect me.
And you know, obviously we’ve been wearing surgical masks forever, and there’s a reason. Surgical masks don’t filter all the bacteria and viruses, but it reduces droplet transmission and it reduces the bacterial and viral load as it goes through the mask. There are a lot of reasons why masks work, but if you look at the influenza season last year it was non-existent because we were all masked and socially distancing, something we had never done in my 30-year career.
And already flu is in Mississippi. We’re seeing COVID and flu together because we’ve dropped our mask. You know, there are times when it’s appropriate to wear a shirt, and there’s times it’s appropriate to wear a mask. And you know, I’m not going naked face to Walmart. Now I wear my mask.
Kate Royals:Dr. Lacy and Dr. Coleman, what do y’all see in your school system? I know, Dr. Lacy, you’re in an elementary school, a principal there, so how’s it with the little folks, getting them to wear the mask properly?
Dr. Mandy Lacy: Well, they’re precious. They’ll do anything we ask them to do. And it’s important that we’re modeling what we expect them to do.
So our teachers are doing a great job, whether they’re vaccinated or not, keeping their masks on while they’re here at school. They’ll only take them down unless they’re in their six feet teaching zone, six feet away from the closest student. But what we’ve noticed, you know, we’ve had more cases this year than we have in the past, but we have not noticed the spread in the classrooms, and I definitely attribute that to the masks.
We feel like the spreads coming more so from, you know, outside of the school. So we definitely have seen an increase in children being well at school, even as far back as last year as was just stated, in regard to our nurses.
Dr. Bonita Coleman: Right. I agree. I think, you know, none of us expected to be in our third school year still dealing with COVID, but yet here we are.
We are a system just as Pass Christian that has been masked all year. I will tell you that surprisingly it was a lot easier for us to convince our little ones to mask then sometimes our older students. But with that being said, because we were so committed to staying in school, to staying in person and traditional as much as possible, our students have been absolutely phenomenal in doing everything that we’ve asked of them. So we continue to strive in this environment, but at the same time, I think all of us, of course, are looking forward to the day when all of this is over.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward: And I’ll just add one little twist on the mask piece. Here at the medical center, we are also a school. You know, not everybody always thinks about that, but we’ve got about 3,000 students.
So in our education programs, it’s very hard for those to be virtual. We do have some components that can be virtual, but when you’re learning how to take care of patients, so much of that really has to be in-person bedside with the physicians, with your nursing professors, with your dental professors, all of those.
So we have been in person pretty much throughout the entire pandemic, and our students have been wearing masks. You know, even before the vaccine was widely available, people were wearing masks. We had a few little outbreaks in our student population, but that was primarily tied to social events outside of school.
So we felt very good with our own students though they a little bit older than yours, but we felt very good with our own students and how well they were protected by wearing masks.
Michelle Henry: And it sounds like having a culture of safety is prevalent among all of the school districts, whether they are of adults or of elementary, middle, or high school age children. Having a culture of safety is very important.
And so that’s something that as parents, we could encourage whether we believe in the vaccine or not, whether our families are vaccinated or not, having a culture of safety is something that can promote. We can promote in our homes to support the school districts.
Kate Royals: Thank y’all. Okay. This next question is from Sharon in Sebastopol. This is for the doctors again, the medical doctors, and deals with confusion about a vaccine that doesn’t prevent illness like some appear to in regards to polio, measles, et cetera, but has been proven obviously to reduce the severity of illness if a breakthrough infection occurs.
So she’s asking specifically whether the COVID vaccine is really comparable to the other vaccines that children are required to have to attend public schools.
Dr. Dan Edney: Well from a public health standpoint, you know, every vaccine is different, and this is really more comparable to the flu shot which is also an RNA virus. RNA viruses are more difficult to develop longstanding immunity for. You know, we were hoping to get maybe a 50% efficacy of a vaccine a year ago, and then we came out with 95%. This vaccine is far superior to the flu shot. And I take my flu shot every year because it’s very effective. Thankfully, we have vaccines that do help eradicate disease. Then we have other vaccines that attenuate disease. And so it’s, you know, we’re still 88% effective in preventing contracting COVID, but more importantly, we’re still over 97% effective in keeping it from killing us.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward: I would just add a bit to that to say that either looking at the Department of Health website or most major hospitals and health systems now are putting out through some sort of social media platform or on their website their numbers of patients that are in the hospital and in the ICU and breaking those down by vaccinated and not vaccinated.
So you can look at it at the state level at the Department of Health, or you can look at Forrest General’s website, Gulfport Memorial’s website, our website, you know, multiple hospitals across the state are putting this information out there so that people can see the difference. And clearly the patients who are very, very sick and who are in the ICU, the vast majority are not vaccinated.
So that that’s one of those pushes that I think we’re trying to help people see that if you are vaccinated, yes, you can get infected with COVID. You can. The vaccine is not 100% at preventing you from getting COVID. However, it is really great at preventing you from being critically ill or dying from COVID.
Dr. Dan Edney: It’s very important that our pregnant ladies in the state know the dangers of COVID that pregnancy in of itself is a very high risk indicator. And all the deaths that we’ve seen of our pregnant moms have been unvaccinated. So vaccination is approved and recommended for all stages of pregnancy and breastfeeding moms.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward: And could I add one more point to this? I’m sorry. So, you know, when we were first dealing with the coronavirus and the alpha variant was the predominant variant, in that situation, many and most of the patients who got really sick were older. They were sick already. They had some ongoing chronic health problems, and it’s important to realize that over the last year and a half, now we are dealing with a different variant.
It has changed. The predominant variant that we’re dealing with is different, and it is that delta variant. And that this has been the variant that we are seeing be so infectious and so dangerous for the pregnant moms, for the kids, for people who are healthy, you know, none of us should feel that we are somehow protected from the Delta variant unless we have gotten vaccinated and we are wearing a mask.
Kate Royals: Thank y’all. Okay. This next one is for Dr. Coleman, and it’s a little bit of a multiple parts. It’s from a Robert Droel in Madison, and he’s asking: What advice would Superintendent Coleman have for school districts throughout the country, which have just begun their school year?
And then the second part is: Does it frustrate her that while Ocean Springs is clearly taking COVID seriously and following public health guidance, neighboring Jackson County School district is mask optional, and apparently, at least in the past, has let parents choose whether to quarantine their kids and kind of taking some different approaches to things.
Does that frustrate you and which district is more reflective of the community’s attitude towards school safety?
Dr. Bonita Coleman: Right. So starting with the first question, I think throughout this entire pandemic educators have been placed in sometimes the most unfortunate circumstance of really trying to operate without understanding all of the science.
I mean, because clearly we’re not epidemiologists. We are really relying on the Mississippi Department of Health, CDC for guidance. And so throughout this entire process for all of us, because this is not.our expertise, we’ve had to read research and just try to stay one step ahead. So I would tell educators to do exactly that. Please attend the chats that the Dr. Byers and Dr. Dobbs provide for all of us on Friday mornings. Try and read as much as you can. And of course, we’re one of those school systems, like I said, that we’ve stayed in person, but at the same time, we also had a virtual component. I think it’s very important to provide options to your community right now because as I’ve continued to say, we’re all in the same storm, but all of us are not in the same boat or not even in the same type of boat.
And so that kind of leads to my response to that second question. We’ve pretty much kept our heads down and tried to worry about our own and to take care of the children and the citizens right here within the confines of what we could control. And so, yes, I know that all districts have the flexibility right now without a health order in place of making those decisions.
And while we are not all making the same decision, at the same time, our responsibility is to the citizens and the students here in Ocean Springs.
Kate Royals: Okay. This next one is from Josh Bernstein in Hattiesburg, and it has to do with when the IHL, Institutions of Higher Learning, voted against mandating vaccines on college campuses. And it said when it did so that the Department of Health has not mandated a COVID vaccine as a condition of attendance, yet he says he had over 1,000 college campuses around the U.S. require these vaccines.
All of those campuses are in areas with less community transmission and higher vaccination rates than Mississippi. Why in the face of mounting deaths and ICU shortages is the Mississippi Department of Health still not recommending colleges in Mississippi mandate COVID vaccines? I’m guessing this is on you, Dr. Edney.
Dr. Dan Edney: Well, our approach has been to try to educate and incentivize our folks to get vaccinated. And as what we’re seeing already with the very few mandates that are in place, a lot of people are digging their heels in even deeper. And I can tell you that we’re moving from vaccination hesitancy more to vaccination hardened resistance.
And as I talked to more and more groups, I’m getting a flavor of more frustration and anger, which we, we don’t want. We want people to be safe. And, you know, if I were king of the world, I would, you know, mandate vaccines, but there are a lot of factors in play. It’s very clear the health department has recommended that every person in Mississippi that is eligible be vaccinated, you know, unless there’s a clear contraindication, there are not many at all for them.
I don’t think Dr. Dobbs could be any clearer on that. And I think, you know, the mandates are coming from the federal government, but in meantime, we’re just trying to educate our folks to please take the safe approach of vaccination, which is safe, effective, and free.
Kate Royals: This one’s for Michelle. You’re a parent of some children in Jackson Public Schools. Do you want to just sort of tell us about what was it like being virtual, you know, the majority of last year, all of last year versus now? You’ve been on both sides of it as a parent, so what’s that been like?
Michelle Henry: So the school district has a responsibility to make sure that all students receive a quality public education. And we can say that some of our students who had home support, who had adequate internet access, they were able to thrive through the pandemic, my children not being the exception. We set up parameters, we set up guidelines on what our school day would look like, and so our virtual learning was able to thrive. However, their social interactions plummeted, and I have children who are socially motivated. And so because of that, we’ve seen both sides. Now I recognize that my children need to be around other children. I was one of those who felt that when the district decided that we would go back to traditional face-to-face, that I would do everything in my power at home to make sure that my children are safe in the school system.
And so, as soon as my youngest son turned 12, we made sure that he got vaccinated. Not only that, but a mask is a part of their wardrobe every single day. You know that when you lay your clothes out at night for the next day, you get your shirt, your pants, your shoes, and your mask because that is something that you have to do.
I also have college students who are back on the college campuses, and every 30 days it is mandatory that they received a COVID test. The state Department of Health offers them free, and so we have access to it, but it’s about, again, that culture of safety that I was speaking about earlier. Individual households have to make sure that that is what we are doing.
And it is unfair for me to know that my children need to be around other children, choose not to allow them to go and be around other children, but send them in there without any type of training or any type of protection to make sure that they are safe and that they come home at the end of the day as safe as possible.
So sitting on both sides of those, I recognize that it is very important to make sure that you have a plan for whichever side of it is. The school district has to do what’s best for the school district. But as parents, we have to do what’s best for us and whatever side that is, make sure you have a plan going in.
Kate Royals: Well, I’m going to turn it over to my coworker, Will. He’s got some more reader questions and maybe some of his own, so thank you so much.
Will Stribling: Thanks, Kate and all the panelists. That was great. That portion of the Q&A was more focused on education issues. This will be more focused on just the healthcare system and vaccines in general.
This first question is for Dr. Woodward and Dr. Edney. It’s from Camille and Rankin County. She asks: As it stands right now in Mississippi, there is no limit to the number of patients that a nurse can be responsible for simultaneously. How can patients, especially now be assured that they are getting adequate care when the nurses are spread so thin? We’ve gotten a lot of questions like that because people are worried now, you know, hearing that the healthcare system is so overwhelmed that even if they are able to get into a bed that they won’t be open to get the same quality care that they would during a time where this system was under less stress. So hoping you all could speak to that.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward: So I’ll say a few things about that and then turn it over to you, Dr. Edney, to add to it.
We are stretched very thin at so many at so many levels, nursing being one of the major levels and a major pain point, but also respiratory therapist. You know, today, you know, we’ve had multiple conversations within the four walls of this medical center, or I don’t know how many walls we have, but all of our walls about respiratory therapy and the shortage we have there, but it’s also LPNs. It’s CMAs.. It’s really so many of the people that are involved in hands-on patient care. But nurses are definitely probably the highest volume and biggest pain point and what people have heard about the most. So probably many of the listeners right now have heard about, you know, a few weeks ago when the EMS and the Memphis emergency services basically put out a plea that said, you know, we are getting close to some sort of tagging triage system. And the CMO at North Mississippi Medical Center put out a public service announcement about our emergency department and hospital is overwhelmed.
“You know, please don’t come to the emergency department if you can put it off.” So what happens is basically you become overwhelmed when there are more patients than you have the resources to care for, you have to do one of two things. You have to try to spread your resources more thin, which creates a lot from everybody involved, or you start closing down beds and you start saying, “I’m sorry, we cannot take that next patient and transfer. We can’t take that ambulance patient. We can’t take, you know, whatever the case may be. We were going to have to postpone your surgery.” We are going to have to do things like that that none of us are comfortable doing, but yet we’ve all heard, at least I have, in the news in the last couple of weeks, different examples of that happening around the country, in some cases in Mississippi.
So that is a concern that we all have, that the nurses have, that the leaders have, the physicians have, respiratory therapists. How do we manage it when you get to that point where the demand exceeds your resources? And my background is emergency medicine. And one of the things that’s very fundamental to training in emergency medicine is: What is the definition of a ?disaster? And the hardcore definition of a disaster is the demand exceeds your resources, whatever you’re talking about, ventilators people, beds, nurses, meds, whatever it may be. So, we have been teetering and sometimes even toppling over into that situation where the demand exceeds our resources.
So what can you do? We’ve called as a state, we have called the Department of Health, the governor’s office has called for additional help. You know, we’ve had field hospitals set up in parking garages. They have at the state level try to bring in additional resources from the standpoint of contract personnel, Department of Defense personnel, that has been helpful.
It is also complicated. It’s not easy and it’s not simple and it’s not stream-lined, but that has been helpful. I feel like in some cases we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. You know, there is a finite amount of people that are out there available to assist. And when weed people in from Tennessee, that hurts Tennessee, and they’re gonna pull people in from Alabama and, you know, it is a challenge.
It is a daily struggle and probably the thing that keeps people like me, and I would say probably 10,000 people here at the medical center up at night. That is our greatest concern. Do we close down beds? Do we continue to take patients in that front door that is the emergency department when we’re already holding 30 patients that need an inpatient bed?
There’s no easy solution. There’s no quick answer to this. I’ll turn it over to Dr. Edney for his input.
Dr. Dan Edney: No, absolutely. I agree with everything, and, you know, basically, Will, our hospitals and especially our hospital staffs led by nurses have just done an incredible feat this last four to six weeks. They have done things that nobody will ever understand unless you were there. I’m still a pricing internist and have watched it.
And I can tell you, yes, resources were stretched, but quality was maintained to the highest level possible. That’s just who they are. And I’m so grateful, Dr. Woodward, for the leadership UMMC has given us all through this pandemic, but we, yeah, we reached a point where we were about to make decisions we’ve never had to make before, like Idaho was making now in terms of deciding who gets a vent and who doesn’t, or who gets an ICU bed and who doesn’t.
Thankfully, our people have stepped up. Vaccination rates were up to 42% and we made an incredible effort to get monoclonal antibody therapy out everywhere, which reduced hospitalizations by 80%. So even though we’re still seeing high numbers, we are getting some breadth in the hospitals. We still need them in the ICUs, but it’s just a shout out to everybody that’s done things that most people never imagined we’d have to do, and especially to our nurses who have stayed in their post and have not deserted the state, our nurses who are being paid less than the travel nurses are getting paid and they’re staying in their home communities and taking care of their friends and their families. You know, the lieutenant governor’s right.
We have got to take care of them. They have saved the day for us.
Will Stribling: Thank y’all. And this next question is from Carolyn in West Point. She said that she’s not vaccinated, but her husband is, and is it possible for him to be asymptomatic and pass it onto me? I know that’s yes, but Dr. Edney, could you just talk a bit about how folks who are living in homes with family members that may not be vaccinated how they can prevent or help prevent a spread within the home because, you know, they’re like in my home I have little sisters who are not able to be vaccinated right now. You know, a lot of people are dealing with this right now and just trying to prevent that transmission in the home where it occurs the most frequently.
Dr. Dan Edney: In that situation, it’s easy. You know, get vaccinated. But we do have homes you’re describing, Will, especially multi-generational homes which are common in Mississippi, that all have family members at risk and you have school-aged kids who are not eligible for the vaccine who come home. And I’ve had one patient that I lost. She was vaccinated, but she was responsible for her grandchild, and he came home from school with COVID and she had diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis and contracted COVID despite the vaccine because of in-home contact, which is much higher risk.
And she succumbed very quickly to it. So, you know, in those situations you do as Ms. Henry said. You know, your mask as part of your wardrobe, and the children have to be masked at school, or they’re going to bring it home. And if they’re masked, they may still bring it home but it won’t be as high of a viral load, which has a direct correlation to severity of illness.
So you know, if you have a home where not everyone can be vaccinated, then masks become important and you cohort, that means the family all does the same thing. You know, when everybody goes to Walmart, everybody wears their mask. When children go to school, they wear the mask. Everybody tries not to be risky with their behavior.
The family does everything about the same, and that cohort is more protected instead of somebody just going out and going to a lot of parties and bringing it home or going to school unmasked or someone just refusing in the family to be vaccinated. That just puts the family at risk.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward: And if I could add just a bit, there was a part of that question that said be asymptomatic.
And I do want to emphasize that, you know, the range of symptoms that people have with COVID from the very beginning, whether it was the first variant or now this variant, the range of symptoms that people can have is very broad from asymptomatic to just the minor sniffles and cold and sore throat and, you know, the symptoms that a lot of us in Mississippi might have that we think are seasonal allergies and no big deal. We just have to have a very heightened level of awareness that that range of symptoms is huge. And you don’t necessarily have to have fever and be short of breath and the more severe symptoms to have COVID.
So the asymptomatic piece, particularly if you’re around family members that are unvaccinated is very important.
Dr. Dan Edney: That’s right. Being vaccinated does reduce your risk of transmission if you have an asymptomatic case. But I mean, you’re still contagious. So Dr. Woodward is right. Any of us, even if you have mild symptoms, get tested so that you can protect others.
And don’t just assume that you have allergies. If it’s different and you don’t feel well, then just get tested. And if you’re at high risk, then you may need to get monoclonal antibody treatment, but the way for us to get through this is to protect each other.
Will Stribling: Thank y’all. Y’all just answered the question I was going to next.
Someone was asking about, you know, with it being allergy season, flu-like symptoms when they should be concerned. But if I’m correct, y’all said that it doesn’t matter, that if you’re experiencing those symptoms that you should get tested, you know, play it safe.
Dr. Dan Edney: Yeah, especially if you feel different. You know, most people know how their allergies do, but if you’re feeling different, COVID is not going to be just like a seasonal allergy, you know.
And if you don’t have allergies and you’re having those symptoms, get tested. If you have allergies and it’s different, you’re feeling badly, you know, more than your allergies, get tested. We don’t need to test you every week during allergy season, but just as Dr. Woodward said, have a heightened sense to this.
Will Stribling: And this next question is from Ruth in West Point for Dr. Edney. Are you concerned about the mu variant, and how are you preparing for its arrival in Mississippi? I know that there are multiple variants being tracks around the world right now, but it seems like really none of them can hold a torch to Delta.
Dr. Dan Edney: Yeah, that’s it. Right now, nothing can get past Delta, and mu was not showing the transmissibility yet. We’ve seen a few cases of mu in the state ,and they just haven’t gone anywhere, which is a good sign, but, you know, mu can still change and other variants. If we don’t get our population immunity up, there will be other variants and, you know, God help us if we see anything worse than Delta. Thankfully, Mu does not look to be as bad as Delta. And we think Delta is probably going to get our population immunity up cause everybody’s going to be vaccinated or they’re going to get it. And, you know, once we get population immunity, we’ll see the fire start to extinguish.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward: I have heard Dr. Dobbs say in a couple of different settings that we will get herd immunity the easy way or the hard way.
Will Stribling: It looks like I just have time for one more question, and this is for both of y’all. It’s from Susan in Columbus. She’s asking if we have any reason to be optimistic about a return to pre-COVID behavior in the next few months. If not, what options do we have towards, you know, effectively containing the virus enough to allow a return to free living in the future?
I know no one wants to make predictions right now about when this is going to be over, but I asked you this just because a lot of people are, you know, feeling increasingly anxious about us ever getting out of this and that can, you know, inspire despair and in some cases, apathy. So I just want both of y’all to just talk about what Mississippians can do individually right now to, to hunker down and weather through the, you know, the remaining months of this pandemic, however many there are.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward: Well, I’m going to try to beat Dr. Edney to the punch here because there really is only one answer and that is for us to all get vaccinated. You heard him say earlier the more we delay getting vaccinated, the more opportunity the virus has to develop new variants and new strains. And, you know, my biggest fear— he just mentioned about, you know, Lord help us
if something happens worse than Delta— my biggest fear is that we continue to piddle along like we were a month or six weeks ago with such low vaccination rates that in fact a new strain does develop and emerge that the vaccine doesn’t have effectiveness for. So that is a big concern.
However reasons to be optimistic I would say our vaccination rate is going up. I hear stories every day and these are low volume, you know, one at a time, personal stories, but I hear stories every day about a physician or some kind of healthcare worker who was in conversation with a patient that had been waiting and been delaying getting vaccinated, but finally felt comfortable that it was the right thing to do.
So these little success stories add up. We are seeing more people getting vaccinated, which is really the best thing. I would not say that it’s not just a few months out. I think we do have a few more months of hopefully dealing with the tail end of Delta. Hopefully we’re on that side of it, but I certainly feel some degree of optimism for the spring.
I hear just chatter. I don’t know anything secret or any kind of, you know special intel, but I do hear that we’re moving forward and moving in the right direction about expanding the age of the vaccine. I’m optimistic that this fall there’ll be approval for younger children down to age five.
And that is another thing that will help us, I think, perhaps have a different kind of spring. So let me stop there and ask Dr. Edney what he would add.
Dr. Dan Edney: Absolutely. Dr. Dobbs thinks that will come off the Delta wave and probably get back to pre-Delta numbers for a while and be able to catch our breath before Thanksgiving.
And so Thanksgiving we can remember what it was like last year and that was pre-vaccination, but, you know, we can either have a sizable Thanksgiving bump or a small one. We’re going to have a bump, but it’s up to us. It’s our choice if we get vaccinated, if we get our vaccination rates and our population immunity levels up, then we should be able to cruise through the holidays okay and finish out this thing. If we don’t, then we can see, we can have another tough Thanksgiving and Christmas, not as bad as last year, but tougher than it than it needs to be.
Will Stribling: Well, thank you, Dr. Edney and Dr. Woodward. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. I’m going to turn it back over to Adam to close.
Adam Ganucheau: Thanks so much, Will. Wow. I’m blown away. I think everybody who participated today, every panelist just wants to extend just the sincerest, warmest thank you. I think I can speak for all Mississippians and say that we really appreciate you sharing your insights and your perspectives during this time. It’s a difficult one.
There’s a lot of confusion, misinformation out there, and it’s just so it’s such a relief to just hear these things from you guys and just really appreciate it. One last time, I also want to thank tonight’s sponsors, the Delta Health Alliance and The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi for their help in making this possible.
Really appreciate that. If you haven’t already please visit our website at www.MississippiToday.org for comprehensive coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. There you’ll find deep data dives, maps, stories about how the virus is affecting our schools and our hospital system. You’ll also find our vaccine guide, which has everything you need to know about getting the shot and protecting your neighbors.
Thank you to everyone for being here. It’s a pleasure getting to visit with you, albeit virtually and until next time from the entire Mississippi Today team, have a great rest of your night and a great rest of your week.
Rupp, also an alderman in the city of Starkville, talks about the E-center, it’s missions, its successes and how it helps reduce brain drain. He also discusses his career in the media and as mayor of Columbus, Miss – and his time playing rock and roll.
Rupp stresses that one way to reduce brain drain is to encourage entrepreneurship and to do that, listen to what young entrepreneurs want in the towns they live in.
