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As cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations decline statewide, some schools have done away with mask requirements.

But after three pediatric deaths in the month of September and six since July, the Mississippi chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is pleading with schools not to drop their guards yet.

“It is really concerning that schools are dropping mask mandates and putting children at risk,” said Dr. Anita Henderson, president of the Mississippi chapter of the AAP.

The group also cites the fact that while cases and hospitalizations have declined as a whole, around one-third of total COVID-19 hospitalizations at Children’s of Mississippi are children under the age of 12.

“Acute COVID hospitalizations are increasing again it seems, and it is timed exactly with schools dropping mask requirements,” said Dr. Charlotte Hobbs, professor of pediatric infectious disease.

Most recently, two children between the ages of 11 and 17 died after contracting the virus, according to the Mississippi Department of Health. One of those was a 16-year-old football player from north Mississippi, the Sun Herald reported.

At the beginning of September, a baby died of COVID-19.

“MSAAP urges school boards, superintendents, teachers and parents to continue with masks requirements in all indoor school settings to slow the transmission of COVID-19,” the statement reads.

Currently, 26 school districts are mask optional.

The group points to two studies published in the last week showing that masks in school settings work. The studies were done in Maricopa and Pima counties in Arizona in July and August of this year, and found that schools without mask requirements were 3.5 times more likely to have COVID-19 outbreaks.

Schools in Madison and Rankin counties, along with Ocean Springs School District, have recently rolled back their mask requirements. The Rankin County School District school board voted unanimously to rescind the district’s mask mandate last week.

In a Sept. 23 letter to families, Madison County School District Superintendent Charlotte Seals cited a “significant decline in Covid-19 cases and quarantine” in the district.

“The data now supports a change in our Covid-19 protocol level,” the letter continued, referring to a tiered COVID-19 response system the district developed. “As of Friday, September 24, Madison County will transition to Covid-19 Protocol Level 1, which includes recommended but not required mask wearing in school buildings.”

When asked whether the district will reconsider based on the pediatricians’ plea, Gene Wright, director of communications, deferred to the school board, which will meet Monday.

Ocean Springs School District Communications Specialist Trey Brennan said the district is monitoring data and will “make decisions based on local conditions in our community.”

A spokesperson for the Rankin County School District did not respond to Mississippi Today’s questions on Friday morning.

Since the beginning of the school year, 26,817 teachers, students and staff have tested positive for COVID-19, according to data from the Mississippi Department of Health.

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Mississippi’s job training and partnerships with private companies aren’t consistent or extensive enough to grow a bigger and better-skilled workforce, according to Accelerate Mississippi’s first-ever public report. 

The 6-month-old office and its director, Ryan Miller, are tasked with setting the state’s disjointed workforce development efforts on a strategic path — one that ends in more Mississippians at jobs that pay $40,000 or more a year. 

Miller says that means “looking in the mirror” and assessing how past job training funds were spent. With new legislative guidelines for spending job training funds and Miller at the helm, the state is at the beginning stages of redirecting millions of taxpayer dollars to target skills training for the state’s most in-demand jobs. 

“One of the things that frustrates me the most… is when I hear the old saying ‘Why are we doing this?’ and the answer comes back ‘because that’s the way things have always been done,’” Gov. Tate Reeves said during his first joint press conference with the new office earlier this week.

 “When it comes to workforce development, I refuse to allow our state to adopt this mentality.”

Accelerate Mississippi’s 2021 “Talent Development Assessment” was published Wednesday. The new office is required to write an annual report under the legislation that created the office and new training dollar guidelines. 

“It’s a transition,” Miller told Mississippi Today. “We’re on a path to improve.”

Miller’s office may be new, but the Legislature has put it in charge of a $25 million job training fund, which contains money from the state’s Workforce Enhancement Training.or “WET” fund, and Mississippi Works fund. The pot of money is collected via an unemployment insurance tax on businesses. 

In 2020-21, nearly $1 million from the WET fund covered safety training at private companies, according to a Community College Board breakdown. It’s unlikely any federally required safety classes or CPR training will continue to qualify under the new guidelines, Miller said.

Nearly $3 million funded “basic skill” classes across the state’s community college classes during the same period of time. It’s one of the largest uses of any of the WET funds. 

Miller said if those classes don’t show paths to career advancement or opportunities for better wages, that WET funds will likely no longer cover them. 

“We have to prioritize with the limited funding for which we have responsibility,” Miller said. “We make those decisions on priority based upon data, and the input from our industry sector.”

The bulk of the money was previously under the guidance of the state’s Community College Board, which is still involved in the spending and its disbursement among the state’s 15 community campuses. 

The Accelerate Mississippi report specifies that state money has funded programs that were “important to individual communities” that no longer fit under the new office’s state-mandated guidelines to target fields with the largest gaps in skilled workers. 

The report highlights linemen to metal workers and nurses as some of the most in-demand, and above-average-paying jobs with the largest gap between the number of graduated skilled workers and open positions. 

It also says the state needs to collaborate to improve its funded job training efforts; that there have been “micro” successes but few on a “macro” level. The state’s successes often happened in silos, without the collaboration needed to “improver offerings and optimize the use of workforce training funds.”

To do that, Reeves and Miller announced it will be breaking the state up into eight regions or “ecosystems.” Each area will have an Accelerate Mississippi representative to understand the niche job skill needs of that community. 

The state already has four local workforce development areas that are manned by offices called the Planning and Development Districts. Each of those designated areas will have two of the “ecosystems” within them. 

Miller said the new Accelerate Mississippi positions won’t duplicate the existing efforts, but complement them.

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Don’t look now, but a wave of highly talented, really young Mississippi golfers is about to make a splash on the PGA Tour that will be unprecedented in the state’s golf history.

You don’t have to take it from me. Listen to 2019 U.S. Amateur champion Andy Ogletree, from tiny Little Rock in Newton County, who shot a first round 67 Thursday in the Sanderson Farms Championship at Country Club of Jackson.

“Yeah, it’s really cool to see all the young guys from Mississippi out here,” Ogletree, 23, said. “I’m not surprised. We all started young and we’ve been playing together for years all through the junior ranks. Got recruited together. There’s a lot of talent right here in Mississippi, a lot of us about the same age.”

Hayden Buckley of Belden also shot 67, Ogletree played with Fulton native and former Mississippi State golfer Chad Ramey, who shot 70. Davis Riley, another PGA Tour rookie from Hattiesburg, shot 71. West Point’s Cohen Trolio, the current Mississippi Amateur champion and just a freshman at LSU, also shot 71.

Before the tournament even began Jackson’s Wilson Furr shot 67 in the Sanderson Monday qualifying at Deerfield, but lost a five-hole sudden death playoff for the final spot in the Sanderson Farms field. You haven’t heard the last from the talented Furr – or from former NCAA champion Braden Thornberry, who also failed to survive the Monday qualifying but will play again on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022. Jonathan Randolph, now of Oxford, still plays the Korn Ferry Tour, as well.

“Never before,” long-time Mississippi golf pro Randy Watkins answered, when asked when the state had produced so many tour-quality golfers at the same time. “It’s amazing, and you can add Ally Ewing to it if you want to include female golfers. She’s won twice on the LPGA Tour, one of the best ones out there, another golfer from Fulton.”

Why now? Why are so many potentially great players coming along at the same time? Golf has existed in Mississippi since the early 1900s. We’ve never had more than one or two golfers playing the PGA Tour at the same time.

“If you had to put a finger on it, I think there’s a couple reasons,” said Watkins, a former U.S. junior golf champion and tour player. “We’ve had so many great golf courses built in Mississippi over the last 20-25 years. I mean, world class courses. And the instruction is so much better for young golfers these days, guys like VJ Trolio and Tim Yelverton at Old Waverly, and I give a lot of credit to Jim Gallagher, who has taken an interest and played with a lot of these young guys coming up.”

The 2019 U.S. Amateur, played at fabled Pinehurst in North Carolina, was probably the best advertisement ever for Mississippi golf talent. More than 7,000 golfers from all 50 states and around the world entered the qualifying process. When the tournament reached the semifinal stage, two of the four remaining were from Mississippi, Ogletree and Cohen Trolio, then just 17. Ogletree defeated Trolio in the semis and went on to win the championship the next day, the first Mississippian to ever claim that crown.

Ogletree was just getting started. He was the low amateur in the 2020 Masters, finishing in a tie for 32nd. He turned pro after that, but his career has been on essentially a six-month hiatus since he underwent surgery on his left hip in April.

“It just feels good to be playing golf again,” Ogletree said after finishing his 67 Thursday. “Regardless of score, I’m playing pain free and that’s the most important thing for me right now.”

Asked if the bad hip had make it difficult to make a natural turn in his golf swing, Ogletree chuckled and then answered, “It made it hard to even walk.”

But Ogletree had a spring his step Thursday coming off the ninth green (his 18th) where he sank a seven-foot birdie putt to complete a round that included five birdies and an eagle. After all, this was a tournament he had in mind during those weeks and months of rehab from the surgery.

“Yeah, this is kind of the one we had circled hoping that I would get a sponsor invite into this one and kind of all of my rehab and preparation was that I would get a start here,” Ogletree said. “So it’s kind of all worked out kind of the way we wanted to and really happy to be playing in Mississippi, a lot of familiar faces out here this week, a lot of friends and family out watching, so it’s a good time and I’m glad everyone gets to see me play.”

Is there added pressure playing in front of so many home folk?

“No, I like playing in front of a crowd,” Ogletree answered. “The first nine PGA events I played before my surgery there was no crowd because of COVID. It’s nice to have a few people clapping now and then.”

The gallery had plenty to cheer from Ogletree and other Mississippians Thursday. When you consider all the talent, mixed with so much youth, this really could go on for years.

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Mississippi Today won the 2021 Collier Prize for State Government Accountability, one of the largest journalism prizes in the nation.

The investigation, reported for Mississippi Today in partnership with the The Marshall Project, exposed Mississippi’s practice of forcing individuals convicted of low-level felony offenses to work off their fines and other court debts at low-wage jobs during the day while they are confined in locked facilities at night until the debts are paid.

“I’m grateful to know that readers were as stirred as I was by the experiences of Annita, Dixie, Gaylia and so many others in Mississippi’s disastrous prison system,” Ann Wolfe, Mississippi Today’s investigative reporter, said. “Thank you to the dozens of people who trusted us to tell their stories. None of this, none of the impact we hope to have through our reporting, is possible without their courage and vulnerability.”

The project was a five-part series reported over several months, reported by Joseph Neff and Alysia Santo of The Marshall Project, and Michelle Liu and Anna Wolfe of Mississippi Today. Data analysis was provided by The Marshall Project’s Andrew R. Calderon. Leslie Eaton of The Marshall Project and R.L. Nave of Mississippi Today (now at editor-in-chief at Reckon) edited the project. Liu, who was a reporter for Mississippi Today between 2018 and 2020, now works for The Associated Press.

“This reporting — among the most impactful government accountability journalism in Mississippi’s history — should be held up as a shining example of the power of newsroom collaboration,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief. “Pairing Mississippi Today’s local, boots-on-the-ground reporting with the resources and renowned talent of the journalists at The Marshall Project allowed us to expose profound wrongs and change many lives for the better. We’re so proud to have been part of this project.”

This is the fifth national award the investigation has won. In April 2021, the investigation won the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. In March 2020, the project won the John Jay College/Harry Frank Guggenheim awards for Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting. In February 2020, the reporting won the Sidney Award. In September 2020, it won the Online News Association’s Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award.

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Tens of thousands of Mississippians who are at the highest risk for COVID-19 are now eligible for a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine to help increase their protection against the virus. 

There are three groups of people now eligible to receive a third dose at least six months after receiving their second dose.

• People aged 65 years and older and residents in long-term care settings
• People aged 18-64 years with certain underlying medical conditions
• People aged 18-64 years who are at increased risk for COVID-19 exposure and transmission because of occupational or institutional settings

In Mississippi, booster shots are now available at all county health departments. Appointments can be made online at https://covidvaccine.umc.edu or by calling the Mississippi Department of Health COVID-19 hotline at 877-978-6453.

Boosters for these groups were recommended by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee on Sept. 24.

Regulators have not yet made additional recommendations about booster shots for those who received the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Moderna has applied for Food and Drug Administration authorization of booster shots, and the FDA is leaning towards authorizing half-dose booster shots, according to a report from Bloomberg. Johnson & Johnson has not submitted an application for boosters of its single-dose vaccine to the FDA, but has reported studies that show a second dose significantly increases the vaccine’s efficacy.

In August, FDA made a small number of people with weakened immune systems, such as cancer patients and organ transplant recipients, who received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines eligible for a third shot. These shots must be received at least four weeks after a second dose, and are not boosters, but instead a necessary component of immunization for these individuals. 

READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s Vaccine Guide

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Mississippi’s top doctor has “grave concerns” about the Legislature’s plan to fund a medical marijuana program. 

On Tuesday, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said the state Health Department’s role in the proposed program would cost millions of dollars a year, which could cut care for necessities the department provides.

The Legislature’s program would replace Initiative 65, a ballot proposal passed by a majority of voters last November that was turned over by the state Supreme Court in May over a constitutional technicality.

Under Initiative 65, Mississippi’s medical marijuana program would have been self-funded through fees on all parties involved in producing and selling the product, as well as patients. The legislative proposal contains no such mechanism, and instead places all sales and excise tax revenue from the program in the state general fund. 

The proposal calls for the program to be regulated by MSDH, The Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce (MDAC) and the Department of Revenue. 

MSDH has estimated that the health department’s role in the program would cost the agency $3.5 million per year. This includes patient and physician registry, lab and product safety, as well as regulations over packaging and advertising. During a committee meeting of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, Dobbs said MSDH is ready to take on these duties since the majority of regulations had already been drafted by the health department in preparing for Initiative 65 to go into effect. What they don’t have, Dobbs said, is the money. 

“Whenever these big pots of money get into our state general fund, and there’s a cut, it ends up cutting care for pregnant women and babies, and these other things get fully funded,” Dobbs said. “So, I just want to make sure that we’re very cautious about how we budget this money so that it doesn’t harm the public health mission.”

State Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson,  who said he opposes his agency being involved in marijuana regulations, raised similar concerns over the bill’s funding issues.

Under Initiative 65, the entire program would have been operated under MSDH, an approach Gipson has continued to advocate for. If the bill were to pass as written, MDAC would be responsible for regulating the growing, processing and transportation of marijuana. Gipson estimates it would cost his agency $2.9 million a year to perform these duties, a massive undertaking for a department that currently operates under a $7.5 million budget. 

“We don’t have anything in place today to do what this bill would require,” Gipson said. 

Gipson also raised concerns over potential corruption within his own department. His inspectors make between $25,000-$35,000 per year, and Gipson said they could be enticed to take bribes for clearing inspections that do not meet regulatory standards. 

It would also be inefficient to place duties on MDAC that could be better performed by other agencies, according to Gipson. He argued that the Department of Public Safety could more easily regulate transportation under existing programs, and the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics would be better suited and equipped to handle disposal.

“I don’t think it’s a great idea for the Department of Agriculture to have to go out and buy equipment and things that other agencies are already doing,” Gipson said. 

On Wednesday, Gov. Tate Reeves said he’ll call lawmakers into a special session on medical marijuana legislation “sooner rather than later,” and noted funding as one of the details that still needed to be worked out before a session is called. 

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Robin Stewart, an existing Mississippi Department of Employment Security head, will take over as the office’s interim director, Gov. Tate Reeves announced Wednesday. 

Stewart will replace Jackie Turner, whose retirement is effective Sept. 30. In Stewart’s current role as deputy director of workforce programs, she oversees staff across the state’s more than 40 WIN Job Centers. 

 “Her over 30 years of service at MDES overseeing workforce programs makes her well-qualified and demonstrates the dedication she has for helping Mississippians get jobs,” Reeves said in a statement. 

MDES handles the state’s unemployment payments and offers training and job placement services. 

“I look forward to continuing to fulfill the agency’s mission of ‘Helping Mississippians Get Jobs,” Stewart said in a statement. 

Stewart attended the University of Southern Mississippi, where she earned a degree in public administration. She has worked her way up through MDES, previously serving as a WIN Job Center manager and an area director for the centers.

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Sergio Garcia, who last week became the winning-est player in Ryder Cup history, easily could have skipped this week’s Sanderson Farms Championship, which begins Thursday at Country Club of Jackson.

Garcia, the Sanderson Farms defending champion, could have used exhaustion – both mental and physical – as an excuse. And, really, who would have blamed him? If you watched the Ryder Cup matches, you know how much of himself he poured into every match, every shot. And you know how well he played in a losing cause at demanding Whistling Straits, hard by Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan shore.

At 41, Garcia teamed with fellow Spaniard John Rahm to win three points for Europe, giving him 27.5 points in his 10 Ryder Cups. That enabled him to pass Sir Nick Faldo as the all-time leader. He long ago passed the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods. If there ever was a time to rest on his laurels, this was it.

But, no, Garcia was out at CCJ at daylight Wednesday, teeing it up in the Sanderson Farms pro-am and later he was in the interview room explaining why he really never considered skipping Mississippi’s lone tournament on the PGA Tour.

“Well, it’s quite simple. I try to defend my titles every time I can,” Garcia said.”I haven’t been able to do it every single time, but I love to do it every possibility I have.”

Good old-fashioned Mississippi hospitality also played a role, Garcia indicated.

“Second of all, the way everyone treated us here was just amazing,” he added. “And the golf course is just a great golf course, the kind that I enjoy coming back and playing, and I wish I could play more golf courses like this on tour.

“It’s the kind of golf course that make you think a little, but it’s not tricked up or anything like that….So it’s just a solid golf course and a great tournament and I am excited to be back.”

Garcia surely will be welcomed with open arms by Mississippi golf fans, who could not attend in person (because of COVID concerns) last year when Garcia utilized his skills as one of golf’s greatest ball strikers ever to shoot shoot a 72-hole total of 19-under par to win by a single shot. He almost holed a 172-yard 8-iron (into a breeze) to set up a 30-inch birdie putt on the 72nd hole. Earlier, he blasted an incredible 260-yard 5-wood shot to set up an eagle to begin his charge toward the victory.

Those same shot-making skills were on full display at the Ryder Cup last week, when he and Rahm provided just about the only highlights for the Europeans. Rahm showed why he is world’s No. 1 ranked player, and Garcia displayed the will and dogged competitiveness that have made him the Ryder Cup legend he is. Garcia and American Dustin Johnson won the inaugural Jack Nicklaus-Tony Jacklin Award, based on sportsmanship, teamwork and performance.

“I love the Ryder Cup,” Garcia said, in accepting the award. “…I try to play the game to the best of my ability, but always with respect and I enjoyed it.”

Garcia said it was important to show young players “that you can play with respect and have fun, even in defeat. I love my team. I’m so proud of all of them…. I love the guys in that room.”

Here at CCJ, the big question seems: How much of that competitiveness and energy will Garcia have left in his tank after that whirlwind week in Wisconsin, a return to his Austin home for not quite 48 hours, before traveling to Jackson Tuesday evening.

“I feel good,” Garcia said. “I’m not going to lie, obviously didn’t get much sleep on Sunday night. But Monday and Tuesday it’s been good, I was able to rest a little bit in Austin with the family, got here last night and I feel pretty good at the moment. 

“Obviously you all know how much I love the Ryder Cup and even though, yes, there’s a lot of energy involved in it and that you put on it and stuff, I still love it every time I play it. So at the moment I feel quite good, I don’t think it has hit me yet and hopefully it won’t hit me until I get back to Austin next week, so I can have a good solid week here.”

To repeat here, Garcia must find enough energy to beat the best field in the Mississippi tournament’s 54-year history. Several recent major championship winners are involved including 2019 U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland, Zach Johnson (2007 Masters and 2015 British Open), 2016 PGA Championship winner Jimmy Walker and 2009 U.S. Open champ Lucas Glover. Also playing here are, 2011 FedExCup champion Brandt Snedeker, 2017 Players Champion Is Woo Kim and 2021 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year Will Zalatoris (Masters runner-up last April) and 2019 U.S. Amateur champion Andy Ogletree, the Mississippian who was low amateur in the 2020 Masters.

Garcia, for one, is not surprised by the quality of the field.

Said he, “I think as people come and play and they see the quality of the golf course and the quality of the tournament it just goes from mouth to mouth and then probably more of the top guys want to come and play. It’s as simple as that.”

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