Mississippi leads the nation in COVID- 19 deaths per capita and use of monoclonal antibody treatments
While Mississippi is no longer last in its vaccination rate against COVID-19, the state is now leading the nation in COVID-19 deaths per capita.
Mississippi surpassed New Jersey in COVID deaths per 100,000 residents this week, after the state held the title for 15 months. Mississippi taking the top spot was the direct result of a disastrous month that saw the state record more than 20% of its total infections and pushed its healthcare 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%. These trends have health experts in the state cautiously optimistic about the future of the pandemic in Mississippi.
“It certainly does look like our trends are coming down, but we’re still at very high levels of cases and we anticipate that we’re going to continue with those five numbers, at least for a while,” State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said.
Mississippi is also leading the nation in the use of monoclonal antibody treatments. State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said Thursday that the majority of monoclonal antibody treatments have been utilized in the southeast and that Mississippi leads those states in treatments given per capita.
“I want to remind everyone that the best way to prevent COVID is to get vaccinated,” Dobbs said during a press conference on Thursday. “If folks get COVID, we know that the monoclonal antibody treatments are very effective at preventing hospitalization and can also save your life.”
Up until this week, states had no cap on the amount of monoclonal antibodies they could request from the federal government, but an allocation system has now been implemented. While MSDH has had to move some of their supply around to different providers, Dobbs said that Mississippi is receiving enough to ensure that any Mississippian who seeks out monoclonal treatment can get it.
Dobbs also discussed the risks COVID poses to pregnant people. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 15 pregnant patients have died from the virus, eight of them since the beginning of August. All were not fully vaccinated, with only one of them having received one dose. All were between the ages of 23-40. Additionally, 72 pregnant patients experienced stillbirths due to COVID-related complications, all after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
“So to protect the moms and also protect our babies, we need to prevent COVID infection,” Dobbs said.
Dobbs reiterated that vaccination is safe for pregnant patients at any stage of their pregnancy, as is monoclonal antibody treatment if they become infected.
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‘It’s like Superman has died’: Friends, teammates remember Parys Haralson
Mike Justice, the ex-football coach, was holding court Tuesday afternoon, telling some friends about Parys Haralson, one of his former players. This was one day after the news that Haralson, who starred for Justice at Madison Central and then at Tennessee and in the NFL, had died at age 37 at his home in San Jose, Calif.
“Here’s the deal on Parys: Let’s just take football out of it,” Justice said. “Never mind what a great football player Parys was, what a wonderful teammate he was, how physically gifted he was, and all that. Let’s just talk about the person he was, the smile he always had. Let’s talk about him as a human being. He was always so positive, so smart, so sincere, so polite — Beta Club guy, honor student. Teachers loved him. Coaches loved him. Teammates loved him. With Parys, you knew he was always gonna be in the right place. He was always gonna do the right thing.”
Haralson, from Flora, was a 15-year-old starting defensive end on the 1999 Madison Central team that went 15-0 and won the state championship. Indeed, the state championship game ended with Haralson sacking the Provine quarterback.
Doug Buckles, who went on to star for Ole Miss on the offensive line, was a senior on that perfect Madison Central team. Of Haralson, Buckles especially remembers this: “In football locker rooms, sophomores are supposed to be seen but not heard. But it wasn’t that way with Parys. He was just 15 but when he spoke, the whole team listened. He was that kind of guy.”
Chamar McDonald, a future professional baseball player, was a junior free safety on that Madison Central championship team. Says McDonald, “The plays rarely got to me. Parys always got them before they could get to me. He was like Superman.”
He looked like the Man of Steel, too. Haralson was naturally strong but also a weight room warrior. As a result, he was chiseled, muscles seemingly on top of muscles.
Haralson became one of the most highly recruited players Justice ever coached. “Could have gone anywhere,” Justice said. “Mickey Andrews (the long-time Florida State defensive coordinator for Bobby Bowden) came in to look some of our seniors when Parys was a junior. We were talking outside the locker room and about that time Parys walked by. Mickey stopped me in mid-sentence and said, ‘Who the hell is that? Why don’t I know about him?’ I told Mickey that Parys was just a junior. So we went on and talked about our seniors, but before he left, Mickey told me, ‘Tell that Harrelson kid he has an official offer from Florida State.’ He had never even talked to him or seen him play. Didn’t need to.”
Haralson became a high school All American for Justice and then signed with Tennessee, disappointing college coaches all across the nation and especially at Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
That was despite the fact that Haralson was what football coaches sometimes call a “tweener.” He was just a tad over six-feet tall and weighed 245 pounds — small for a defensive end and large for an outside linebacker. When Ole Miss coaches asked Buckles what position he thought Haralson would play in college, Buckles said he answered: “Just pick one. Wherever you want him to play, put him there. He’ll make plays.”
Tennessee put him at defensive end and he made the All-SEC freshman team as a top reserve and then started three years for the Vols, serving as captain as a senior. Often as not, he spent most games in the other team’s backfield.
“I played against him once, face to face in 2004,” Buckles said. “My job was to block him. Now, I was a lot bigger (6-6, 310) than Parys but his arms were so dang long and he was so dang strong. I had my arms fully extended and he still got his hands on me. And he was relentless. He told me before the game that we were homies, but he was coming at me on every play. I told him I would expect nothing less and that’s what I got.”
Haralson went on to play nine years in the NFL, seven with the San Francisco 49ers and two more with the Saints. He was a valued member of both squads. He finished his career with 275 tackles, including 28 sacks. And here are two facts that will tell you much about Haralson:
- The first from Justice: “When Parys made the team in San Francisco and knew he was gonna get paid, the first thing he did was buy his mama a house, a nice house. His mama had raised him right and he knew it.”
- When Haralson retired from the Saints in 2014 and was asked by a reporter about his future plans, he answered, “I am going to learn as much I can.”
So, he went to the University of Miami and earned his MBA. The 49ers thought so much of Haralson they hired him as Director of Player Engagement. At the time of his death, Haralson was working in sales for a Silicon Valley company.
“He was in a good place, happy as can be,” McDonald said. “Still worked out a couple times a day. Still in great shape. Still loved to come back and visit Flora. He loved Flora.”
Long-time friends, such as McDonald and Buckles, are struggling to deal with the sudden death of such a cherished friend and such a vibrant, larger-than-life personality. There has been no official word on the cause of Haralson’s death. McDonald and Buckles say they have been told their friend died of a heart attack in his sleep.
“It doesn’t seem real,” McDonald said. “Parys loved his friends and family more than he loved himself. I lost my father 20 years ago, and that was tough, but this with Parys has done a number on me and a lot of others. It’s almost like Superman has died.”
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Podcast: Mississippi football, some terrific regional matchups
The college football season enters its third week with some really interesting non-conference, regional matchups, including Mississippi State-Memphis, Ole Miss-Tulane, Troy-Southern Miss and Jackson State-Louisiana Monroes. Plus, we take a look at the super-surprising New Orleans Saints and intriguing Oak Grove-Greenwood Christian high school matchup.
Stream all episodes here.
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‘Pay alone won’t solve the problem.’ Lawmakers look at teacher salaries, benefits, support
Not only does Mississippi’s public school teacher pay lag other states, insurance and some other benefits cost teachers more or pale in comparison to others.
The Senate Education Committee on Wednesday held a daylong hearing digging into teacher pay, benefits and other issue impacting teacher shortages and problems attracting and retaining qualified educators.
While lawmakers have passed some modest increases in teacher pay in recent years — and politicians have promised more — Mississippi still trails the region and nation in teacher pay by most measures, particularly for starting and mid-career teachers. Mississippi’s starting salary for a teacher with a bachelor’s degree is $37,000. Political leaders have vowed to try to get it up at least to the regional average of nearly $40,000.
Wednesday’s hearing, led by Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, marks the first time in several years that lawmakers have attempted a comprehensive look at the issue to inform policy — and teacher pay.
Lawmakers did not discuss specific pay raise figures, vowing to make a wholistic study of compensation, costs and other factors before trying to come up with a dollar amount. Gov. Tate Reeves, who on Wednesday released an education task force study on teacher recruitment and retention, recently proposed a $3,300 teacher pay raise over three years.
DeBar noted that his district borders Alabama, and that not only is teacher pay higher across the border, insurance premiums for public school teachers are “half as much as Mississippi premiums” for a teacher to insure their family.
Lawmakers on Wednesday were given figures showing that while the total cost of public employee insurance is lower in Mississippi than other Southern states, the employee share for family coverage is higher. For instance, in Mississippi, a teacher with family coverage would pay $726 a month, compared to $251 a month in Alabama, $598 a month in Arkansas or $641 a month in Louisiana.
The state, which has a self-funded government employee insurance plan, has increased rates for employees (teachers included) about 3% a year for the last three years, with more increases expected in coming years. This, teachers have complained, eats into any pay raises they receive.
Kelly Riley, executive director of Mississippi Professional Educators, said she’s glad lawmakers are looking at insurance and other benefits as they discuss teacher pay raises.
“I think this insurance discussion is critical,” Riley said. “We do hear concerns that any time there is a pay raise, there seems to be an accompanying increase in insurance. All benefits are important to teachers.”
Lawmakers also discussed retirement benefits and heard from officials with the Public Employee Retirement System. Mississippi’s employee contribution to the plan is 9%, higher than many other states including Alabama, at 7.5% and Arkansas at 6.5%.
While taxpayers in Mississippi contribute 17.4% for the employer contribution, 16.2% goes to unfunded pension liabilities and only 1.2% to a teacher’s benefits. Many other states also have shorter vesting periods than Mississippi’s eight years for new teachers, and Mississippi’s “break even” point for when pension benefits match what an employee is paying in is 25-30 years.
Lawmakers and presenters noted that factors other than pay play into teacher recruitment and retention, such as providing support staff, career development and “treating teachers like professionals.”
“Pay alone is not going to solve the problem,” said Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, who also urged his colleagues to “think outside the box” and outside bureaucracy in looking for ways to recruit and retain teachers.
But the discussions kept coming back to salary and benefits. Experts with the Southern Regional Education Board noted that teacher salaries in adjusted dollars are lower today than they were in 1980. In the South, teacher pay is 21% lower than in professions where people have similar education.
They also noted that in Mississippi, it can take a teacher with a bachelor’s degree up to 30 years to reach a $50,000 a year salary, 23 years for a teacher with a master’s degree, and up to 16 years for one with a doctorate. They noted that in the South, 45% of teachers leave the profession before their fifth year.
While Mississippi trails other states in starting and mid-career teacher pay, it’s pay average is better for longtime teachers. Figures presented at the hearing showed Mississippi teacher pay for those with 35 years of experience in 2019 was $68,562, compared to the regional average of $66,099.
“It’s teachers coming out of school, up to 20 years — that’s where we have the problems,” DeBar said.
State economist Corey Miller pointed out to legislators that Mississippi’s low cost of living ameliorates lower salaries, but even when adjusted for this, the state’s teacher pay trails that of neighboring and most other states.
Legislative discussions of teacher pay raises this summer are coinciding with talks of eliminating the state’s individual income tax. On Wednesday, Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, said the two initiatives are mutually exclusive.
“You cannot eliminate the income tax and raise teacher pay,” Blount said. “If you eliminate it, you will be forced to cut teacher pay and funding for education. The total funding for (K-12 public schools) is about $2 billion. The revenue from the income tax is about $2 billion.”
Senators on Wednesday also took the opportunity to grill Mississippi Department of Education officials on complaints they’ve received about the education department. Some also bristled when they learned that the two MDE officials planned to skedaddle the day-long hearings after their presentation was over.
Sen. Chad McMahan, R-Tupelo, held up his cell phone and told them he had been on hold with the department for about 45 minutes — since before the hearing started Wednesday.
“I called the Department of Education, the number on y’all’s web site,” McMahan said. “They just hung up … There’s a feeling among educators in this state that they are unable to communicate with the Department of Education. I get calls all the time from teachers either moving to this state or graduating from college that have problems getting their credentials, teachers licenses in a timely manner … sometimes it has taken months … and I have had to help intervene on their behalf.”
MDE officials said they are upgrading their phone system and hiring more people to answer phones and help with credentialing.
Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, noted that the agency has in the past struggled to provide lawmakers accurate figures on how much teacher pay raises would cost.
“I find it very disturbing that the Department of Education has any problem at all determining how much a pay raise will be,” Bryan said. “Some of us consider it an example of how things are working at this Department of Ed.”
Sen. John Polk, R-Hattiesburg, questioned MDE’s efficiency and wondered whether cuts to the agency could help fund raises for classroom teachers.
“A couple of years ago you had a $1 million contract for software, but then two weeks before it was up, you decided you wouldn’t use the software,” Polk said. “That’s $1 million wasted that could have gone to teacher salaries.”
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the Senate, pushed last year’s $1,000 teacher raise and supports further increases. He said in on part of the hearings Wednesday and briefly addressed the committee.
“Whenever you see this many lobbyists in a room, you know something must be happening,” Hosemann joked with the committee. “What you are working on is the future of Mississippi, with our teachers — our opportunity to change and opportunity to prosper. Everything you’re talking about is the key to that.”
READ MORE: Pay for new, mid-career teachers in Mississippi ‘extremely low’ compared to other Southern states
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WATCH: COVID Community Town Hall
Mississippi Today hosted healthcare and education experts to answer your COVID-19 questions at Mississippi Today’s COVID Community Town Hall.
Mississippi State Department of Health Chief Medical Director Dr. Dan Edney and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann opened the event with a Q&A led by Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief Adam Ganucheau and WJTV’s Byron Brown.
Edney then joined superintendent of Ocean Springs School District Dr. Bonita Coleman, principal of DeLisle Elementary School Dr. Mandy Lacy and Dr. LouAnn Woodward, Vice Chancellor and Dean of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, for a panel moderated by Mississippi Today’s Kate Royals and Will Stribling. Viewers also heard from Michelle Henry, a parent in the Jackson Public School District.
This event, presented by Mississippi Today, is sponsored by the Delta Health Alliance and The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi and produced in partnership with WJTV.
Thank you to our sponsors
For more information about COVID-19 vaccines, read and download Mississippi Today’s COVID-19 Vaccine Guide, available in English and Spanish.
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All but three community colleges saw enrollment declines this fall
Enrollment continued to decline at Mississippi’s 15 community colleges this semester amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to preliminary numbers from the Mississippi Community College Board.
About 64,000 students are attending community college this semester, MCCB’s initial headcount shows, a drop of around 3,500 students from last fall.
The numbers represent a slight improvement from the start of last school year, when enrollment dropped by more than 5,000 students.
The longer this decline continues, the bigger the impact will be on community colleges and the working class students of color they serve. For one, community college funding in Mississippi relies in large part on tuition. A sustained period of depressed funding could affect services down the line. And for the students who aren’t enrolled, research shows the longer they don’t attend college, the less likely they will be to ever go.
“Students are the lifeblood of any community college campus,” said Kell Smith, MCCB’s interim executive director. “Our colleges are committed to actively recruiting students to come to a community college so they can transfer to a university or enter the workforce. And when they’re successful in that endeavor, the state is successful as well because we have a higher skilled workforce and a better educated citizenry.”
It’s not just Mississippi community colleges that are experiencing a decline. Across the country, these schools have lost students since the start of the pandemic with enrollment falling by more than 11%, according to the latest numbers from the National Student Clearinghouse.
Nationally, the decline is worse among students of color who comprise nearly half of all community college students. Among Black students, there was a 19% decrease in enrollment from fall 2019 to fall 2019, and among Hispanic students, there was a 16% drop, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse.
MCCB’s preliminary numbers did not include a breakdown by race, gender or school year; that data will be available later in the semester when MCCB does a more detailed demographic count. From fall 2019 to fall 2020, the number of Black students at community colleges decreased by 8%, according to MCCB. The share of white students also fell by nearly 7% as the number of Hispanic students actually increased from 1,891 to 1,910.
This decline is somewhat surprising to higher education experts who expected to see enrollments rise as they did during the 2008 recession. In Mississippi, the Great Recession saw students flocking to community colleges to study trades from computers to nursing.
COVID may have triggered a recession, but there are still jobs available, Smith said.
James Gary, the dean of enrollment management at Mississippi Delta Community College, said he thought fear and uncertainty of the nature of the coronavirus led students to initially put off attending community college. A better understanding of COVID may now be leading them back to the classroom.
“Once people started to realize that we have a vaccine, we have all these safety measures in place to make sure the student had a safe learning experience, we’re going back to — air quotes — normal, they began to come back to us,” Gary said.
Located in Moorhead, MDCC was one of the three schools that did not see a decline in enrollment this semester. MDCC’s enrollment increased by around 115 students this fall, about half the students it lost from fall 2019 to fall 2020.
Gary, who started as dean of enrollment this summer, also credited the increase in students with MDCC reopening its dorms and advertising its Delta Rides program, which provides students with transportation to classes. He also implemented a canvassing program for students who had registered late, a sign they might not follow through with taking classes.
Northeast Mississippi Community College in Booneville also brought students back in person this semester. Chassie Kelly, the director of enrollment services credited the numbers to the school’s four-day instruction week, which allows students to more easily work while they take classes. She also thought a decrease in the rate for dual enrollment, the creation of a scholarship specifically for students studying career and technical programs, and instituting a direct-texting line with students helped bring them back.
“We were able to reach our students in ways that we never even thought of before,” she said.
Another concerning aspect of this decline is funding for the community colleges. Budgets decreased during the 2008 recession even as enrollment went up, and community colleges have been playing catch-up with funding ever since. Shrinking enrollments could affect services when students finally do come back to community colleges in full force, Kelly said.
“Our decline in enrollment affects all areas, from student services to travel as far as conferences to train our faculty and staff,” Kelly said. “When enrollment goes down it affects every area of the campus.”
In turn, that has economic implications for Mississippi, with the community colleges housing career and technical training as well as workforce development.
“That’s one of our focuses as a community college is getting students into the workforce,” Kelly said. “If the students don’t enroll, we don’t get them there.”
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No new charter schools were approved to open in Mississippi this year. Advocates say the process is flawed.
No new charter schools were approved to open in Mississippi this application cycle, and some charter school advocates say it represents bigger problems with the climate in the state.
The Mississippi Charter Authorizer Board, which oversees all existing charter schools and authorizes new ones, denied applications from Instant Impact Global Prep and Relentless Prep Academy at its Monday meeting.
Each year the authorizer board goes through a months-long process to screen potential operators and grant them the authority to open a school in Mississippi. Three other potential schools from two operating organizations withdrew their applications late in the process. This marks the second time no new schools were approved in an application year. The first occurred in the 2016 cycle.
Mark Baker, an authorizer board member and the chair of the applications committee, said he is frustrated by the results of this year’s application cycle and that this would be the last year no new charter schools are approved
Baker told Mississippi Today he believes the problem is that the current charter school law is “too onerous” and changes need to be made to provide charter schools more flexibility.
He said he hopes the board will approach the Legislature with specific points to address in the next legislative session.
But Rachel Canter says the needed change is not in the law itself but the board’s support of applicants before and during the application process. Canter, the executive director of Mississippi First and an advocate who worked with lawmakers to write the Mississippi Charter Schools Act in 2013, said there’s “no real support” given to hopeful schools.
“The sector’s only eight years old,” said Canter. “If the board wants the charter sector to grow, there are things they need to be doing differently. They need to be more collaborative with schools and partners.”
She also said the law doesn’t dictate specifics of the application process — those are determined by the board.
In recent years dozens of prospective schools have started the process, but by the end of the application cycle just a handful actually receive the green light from the authorizer board.The board has approved nine schools total since 2014, when the first cycle began.
“If they want a different application process than the one they have intended that is longer, or offers more opportunity for feedback, that’s all on them,” she said.
Lisa Karmacharya, the executive director of the Mississippi Charter Authorizer Board, said her office and the consultant that evaluates charter school applicants and makes recommendations to the board provided a lot of feedback and outreach to applicants.
“I don’t know anybody that is more disappointed than I am,” she said of the fact no schools were approved.
But it was not due to lack of support, she said, noting that since March, the consultant held over 40 meetings and exchanged around 200 emails with the organizations vying to open schools.
“(The consultant) had constant communication, constant feedback and constant opportunities to engage with them,” said Karmacharya.
Karmacharya also said the board has put out a request for organizations to help with recruiting efforts and has been doing some of its own work on that in house.
Grant Callen of Empower Mississippi, which supports school choice options including charter schools, echoed Baker’s frustration in a series of tweets responding to the news.
“Last I checked, all seven of Mississippi’s current charter schools had a waiting list to get in and 90% plus retention rates. Parents love the education their kids are receiving, and more parents want that opportunity,” he said. “Another cycle without approving new charter schools is a travesty.”
Instant Impact planned to open a K-8 school in the Natchez-Adams School District while Relentless planned a K-5 in the Greenville Public School District. Jackson Leadership Academy, Columbus Leadership Academy and Resilience Academy of Technological Excellence all withdrew their applications.
Charters are public schools that do not charge tuition and are held to the same academic and accountability standards as traditional public schools. By law, charter schools have the capacity for more flexibility for teachers and administrators when it comes to student instruction. Unlike traditional public schools, charters do not have school boards or operate under a local school district, although they are funded by school districts based on their enrollment.
Charter schools can apply directly to the authorizer board if they’re planning to open in a D or F district. If an operator wants to open in an A, B, or C district, they need to get approval from the local school board.
There are currently seven schools operating throughout the state with two additional schools set to open in 2022.
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