To help hospitals wade through the current staffing crisis amid a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections that is stripping the state’s healthcare system down for parts, the Mississippi Department of Health issued an order on Wednesday that permits certified paramedics, as well as regular and advanced emergency medical technicians to care for patients in any part of a Mississippi hospital.
“This has been a pandemic of resource squeezes,” State Health Officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, said. “We are fighting amongst ourselves for resources. Outside the state, companies are paying a lot to lure staff away. So it is a challenge, but a lot of people are staying here.”
The lack of staffed hospital beds in Mississippi has left patients waiting days for a hospital bed. As of Thursday morning, there were only six open intensive care unit (ICU) beds open across the state, with 46 patients waiting for an ICU bed. Additionally, 251 Mississippians were waiting for an emergency room (ER) bed.
“We are clearly at the worst part of the pandemic that we’ve seen throughout, and it’s continuing to worsen,” Dobbs said.
Mississippi has around 2,000 fewer nurses working than it did a year ago, and every hospital in the state is feeling that strain. The University of Mississippi Medical Center has constructed two field hospitals in parking garages to help with patient overflow and provide monoclonal antibody treatments to keep infected people from being hospitalized.
This fourth wave of COVID-19 infections continues to be a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Between July 20 and Aug. 16, 98% of cases (56,748), 89% of hospitalizations (302) and 86% of deaths (303) were among unvaccinated people.
The threat of the delta variant has motivated more Mississippians to take a COVID-19 vaccine. Last week, more than 71,000 Mississippians took the shot, the highest number seen since the end of April. Dobbs said that the increased vaccination rate will pay dividends down the road and help depress the level of transmission that’s occurring rapidly across the state.
“This is going to pay huge dividends in a few weeks, but it’s not going to make a difference this week, or even next week,” Dobbs said. “This is something that’s going to help us in the fall, in September. But still, this is a critical first step to making sure that we’re protecting these folks.”
As the delta variant pushes Mississippi’s healthcare system to the brink and sends coronavirus cases skyrocketing, several advocacy organizations are hosting free COVID-19 vaccination clinics and providing accessible information about the pandemic in immigrant communities across the state.
The Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance (MIRA), the Jackson Free Clinic and the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity (IAJE) have been working since April to administer COVID-19 shots and combat misinformation about the vaccine and the pandemic in Spanish-speaking and immigrant communities in Mississippi.
Across the state, immigrants have settled in rural and small-town communities, centered around agricultural labor and poultry plants in Mississippi, where mostly Latin American immigrants work. In places like Scott County, nearly 12% of the population is Hispanic. This is where one of the state’s largest poultry plants is located — and where one of the nation’s largest single-day ICE raids occurred in 2019.
Fear of ICE and the government’s immigration policies, compounded with fear of the coronavirus pandemic, has increased the need for advocacy organizations like MIRA and IAJE to go directly into Hispanic and immigrant communities to provide access to vaccines, healthcare and reliable information about the pandemic, Lorena Quiroz-Lewis, IAJE founder and director, said.
“Fear, I think, is a part of life of the undocumented person, and then we had the hateful rhetoric of the last eight years,” Quiroz-Lewis told Mississippi Today. “(Poultry plant) working conditions are what lead to (COVID-19) breakouts…The conditions that we’re working in make us more prone to catch COVID-19, so this is why we definitely need to be vaccinated.”
Since April, the Jackson Free Clinic, a volunteer-based clinic that provides free healthcare to uninsured Mississippians, has collaborated with immigrant advocacy organizations to provide over 1,100 COVID-19 vaccine doses, with 955 doses being administered to Hispanic Mississippians, Michael Hohl, Jackson Free Clinic outreach officer, told Mississippi Today.
Hohl said by traveling to immigrant communities across the state, the Jackson Free Clinic is helping reduce barriers of access, like transportation to clinics or having to take off work to travel or be vaccinated. He also said collaborating with IAJE and MIRA, known and trusted organizations within Hispanic and immigrant communities in Mississippi, are vital to the success of the vaccination drives.
The Jackson Free Clinic is a volunteer-based clinic that provides free healthcare to uninsured people in Mississippi. Credit: Michael Hohl, Jackson Free Clinic
“We see the value in partnering with people’s trusted local community organizations,” Hohl said. “If you can go to someone's place where they feel comfortable, somewhere where they don't feel intimidated at all, it breaks down the first barrier, and allows us to address some more personal and private concerns...It gives people, and the physicians, individual time with the patient that they vaccinated, so they're able to ask their questions.”
MIRA community organizer Luis Espinoza also said other barriers, like language and the price of healthcare, can deter immigrants from seeking medical care and COVID-19 vaccinations. Since their first vaccination drive in Richland in April when less than 20 people came to be vaccinated, trust has grown in the Hispanic community. Now, more and more immigrants and Hispanic people are being vaccinated and seeking out information about the coronavirus.
“It’s been difficult to convince people, convince families to get the vaccine, but over time, they started talking to each other and say ‘no, it’s OK to take the vaccine,’” Espinoza said.
Since the beginning, Quiroz-Lewis at IAJE has been focusing on not just vaccinations but also providing immigrant communities with COVID-19 education. IAJE’s promotoras de salud, or community health workers, is a group of immigrant women in rural Mississippi towns who provide free resources, like videos on how to care for yourself if you have COVID-19 and care packages with over-the-counter medications, vitamins and food. Quiroz-Lewis said this helps “the community educate the community.”
The Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance held a free COVID-19 vaccination drive in Carthage on Aug. 14. Credit: Luis Espinoza, Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance
“We need to be concentrating on community members, the gente, the people, and teaching them because they’re the ones who sit in these quinceañeras, who sit in these public spaces, who sit in these churches,” she told Mississippi Today. “That, to me, is valuable and can help combat these myths that are circulating widely.”
Additional free vaccination drives are upcoming Aug. 21 in Forest from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. and Aug. 28 in Laurel from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
“(Mississippi Development Authority) Executive Director John Rounsaville’s resignation was tendered on August 13 following an investigation into his conduct,” Reeves’ spokesperson Bailey Martin wrote in a statement on Wednesday. “He is removed from day-to-day operations of the agency and on administrative leave until the end of the month.”
On Aug. 13, Reeves issued a press release saying Rounsaville was “stepping down to pursue new opportunity” effective Aug. 31, 2021. Reeves, in that same release, went on to praise Rounsaville’s leadership at MDA and said, “I wish him the best in his future endeavors.”
Rounsaville was quoted in the Aug. 13 press release praising Reeves and saying he was resigning “to focus more on my family and spend less time traveling.”
But on Tuesday, Mississippi Today reported that sexual misconduct allegations led to Rounsaville’s resignation. Sources familiar with the incident and investigation said Rounsaville appeared intoxicated and propositioned the three subordinate female MDA employees for sex and rubbed against or touched them. Additionally, Reeves’ office received a recommendation that Rounsaville’s employment be terminated 15 days before his resignation was announced.
On Tuesday, asked for comment on his resignation in light of the sexual misconduct allegations, Rounsaville said he voluntarily resigned.
In a written statement to Mississippi Today on Tuesday, Rounsaville said: “I didn’t live up to my own standards or MDA’s standards. My behavior was not reflective of my character. I deeply regret that, and I apologize to everyone involved. I believed voluntarily resigning was the appropriate consequence. And, it was my hope to save MDA, my colleagues, and my family further embarrassment by doing so.”
The written response from Reeves’ office on Wednesday was in response to questions from Mississippi Today. Those questions included asking why, after receiving a personnel investigative report on Rounsaville on July 29 that recommended his employment be terminated, Rounsaville’s resignation didn’t come until Aug. 13. They also included questions why his resignation was not effective until the end of the month, and whether any action was being taken to prevent Rounsaville from having contact with the subordinate female employees he allegedly harassed while he works out his final two weeks.
Often, when state employees resign, they make it effective at a month’s end to accrue more service time in the state retirement system. As MDA director, Rounsaville makes a state salary of $180,000 a year. MDA directors typically also receive a stipend from a consortium of private businesses under a 2012 state law. The total pay cannot exceed $250,000 a year.
Reeves’ response said: “The governor follows state law and State Personnel Board rules which direct that in any matter such as this, an investigation be conducted by a professional, independent third party. If such an investigation is completed and the recommendation calls for the resignation of a public official, the Governor will accept it or he would demand it if necessary. After a thorough review of the facts of this case, he allowed the director to resign.
“For the protection of state employees, the identities of individuals making personnel complaints are known only to the investigators and not to anyone else in the administration or media. State statute prohibits disclosure of personnel records and prevents the Governor and other administrative officials from even discussing the matter. Only the claimant and the respondent have a right to discuss such a matter publicly.”
State law allows exemption from open records and open meetings laws for personnel records and matters, but does not include a prohibition on them being released or discussed.
The incidents in question occurred on July 9, when Rounsaville, other MDA employees and economic development officials from across the state attended the Mississippi Economic Development Council annual conference at the Beau Rivage Casino Resort in Biloxi. Sometime in the early morning hours of July 9, Rounsaville and others were drinking in a still-crowded casino bar when he allegedly made sexual advances toward the three women.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward, the chief executive of Mississippi’s largest medical center, is no longer mincing words about so many Mississippians’ unwillingness to protect their neighbors.
The chief executive of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, long the most outspoken state leader since the COVID-19 pandemic began, delivered a brutal, tough-love message to Mississippi on Tuesday as the state’s hospital system is on its last breath: Get vaccinated. Wear masks. Protect the future of the state. Do better.
Woodward gave the speech as state officials unveiled a second field hospital set up in a UMMC parking garage — a necessity because the large medical center, like every other hospital in the state, has no additional staff capacity to adequately serve the surge of COVID patients. Samaritan’s Purse, a national disaster relief organization, is staffing and funding the second field hospital that will also include ICU beds.
Mississippi, Woodward said, has “failed to respond in a unified way to a common threat” and “failed to use the tools that we have to protect ourselves, to protect our families, to protect our children, and to protect our state.”
Her speech, no doubt, should raise eyebrows across the state with the second-lowest vaccination rate in the nation.
Below is the full transcript of Woodward’s speech:
“I want to thank the Samaritan’s Purse organization for coming to Mississippi, and for assisting us in this disaster response. And I also want to thank all of those who behind the scenes made this happen. And everybody — the army of people that have been out in this garage these last few days, turning it into a real thing.
You know, Samaritan’s Purse right now is responding to a disaster in Haiti — a natural disaster in Haiti. But the response that they are responding to here in Mississippi today is a disaster of our own making.
We as a state, as a collective, have failed to respond in a unified way to a common threat. We have failed to use the tools that we have to protect ourselves, to protect our families, to protect our children, and to protect our state.
We have an effective and available, a safe, and a free vaccine that we are not using to its fullest capacity. This time last year in press conferences, we all talked about, ‘Boy, if we can just get to that place where we’ve got a vaccine, we’ll get on the other side of this.’ What I have to say to the citizens of Mississippi is we have that vaccine, we have that tool. And we have not appropriately and fully used it. This where we are. We do not have to be here, but this is where we are.
Our healthcare workforce all across the state is traumatized. We are in trouble. I implore you, if you have not yet gotten vaccinated, please do so right away. It is the right thing to do for yourself, for your family, for our children all across the state of Mississippi, and for the future of our state.
We do not need any mandates to do the right thing. This is a decision each individual can make.
I have spent a lot of time over these last years defending Mississippi to colleagues across the country. And I have done that with great pride. I love this place. This is my home. I’m proud of Mississippi. But our actions this last year are not easy to defend.
I am grateful that there are resources out there, people that are out there that are willing at this point to come help us. I’m grateful for the D-mat team that’s over in Garage B. I’m very grateful to the Samaritan’s Purse team that will start seeing patients here tomorrow. I’m grateful that these people are willing to come in and help us as a state.
But I want to say again, and I want to be as clear as I can be: We are not out of this. In order for October and November to look different than August looks and the way that September will look, we have to do something. And what that is: We have to get vaccinated. Wear masks, get vaccinated. Let’s be responsible for ourselves and to each other. Thank you.”
I want Governor Tate Reeves to succeed. We’re in the middle of a medical disaster that features an awful virus that doesn’t care what political party you belong to. It doesn’t care who criticizes who. It doesn’t care what your base thinks. Recently the governor sent out a tweet where he said what is in the cartoon bubble. Haley Barbour didn’t ask for Katrina. But he rose to the occasion, used his connections and leadership ability to help the state recover and Mississippi was better off for it.
The numbers are in. Last week’s “Field of Dreams” baseball game, featuring the Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees and a whole lot of corn, was a smash TV hit. The game drew six million viewers, the largest audience for a regular season baseball game in 16 years.
The Sox and Yankees played a helluva game, but the ballpark, carved out of an Iowa cornfield, was the star of the show, with first Kevin Costner and then the two teams seemingly wandering onto the field through row after row of corn.
Rick Cleveland
It was, in a word, beautiful, and harkened back to the splendid “Field of Dreams” movie, starring Costner, which debuted 32 years ago.
What you might not know is this: Three Mississippians played a huge role in the making of that movie.
You probably know about James Earl Jones, born in the Tate County community of Arkabutla, who plays a most memorable role and lends a most compelling presence — but he is not all. The movie was the brainchild of brothers Lawrence and Charles Gordon, born in Yazoo City and raised in Belzoni, the sons of a Jewish furniture store owner. Larry and Charles Gordon produced Field of Dreams.
Charles Gordon died of cancer last October, but Larry Gordon, 85, is still living and working. And he was watching the evening of Aug. 12 when the first Major League game was played on the same Iowa farm where his iconic movie was shot.
“It was quite something wasn’t it?” Gordon said by phone Tuesday from Los Angeles. “It was a beautiful scene, much like the movie. It was amazing to watch and I think it showed that our movie definitely is still relevant.”
Larry Gordon, the native Mississippian who produced the “Field of Dreams” movie.
“Field of Dreams” has stood the test of time. It has become almost like our generation’s “It’s a Wonderful World.” Who would have thought that a movie, made in Iowa, about farming, baseball and with so much implausible fantasy mixed in, would become such an American treasure?
Larry Gordon and I first spoke back in 1989 just after Field of Dreams debuted. The beloved Mississippi writer Willie Morris, like the Gordon brothers a Yazoo City native, put us together. Gordon had produced more than 200 films, many highly successful, but said “Dreams” was by far his favorite.
“It’s not about the money,” he told me then. “It’s really not. It’s the way people react to this movie. It touches people.”
Gordon told me about a conversation with Major League pitcher Ron Darling, then with the Mets, who watched the movie one afternoon before pitching that night. “Ron told me he cried like a baby at the end of the movie, and was so inspired that he went out and pitched a shutout that night,” Gordon said.
Recently, Gordon was at dinner in a group with NBA superstar LeBron James. The conversation turned to movies and James said Field of Dreams was his favorite.
Said Gordon, “The Dallas Cowboys might be America’s team, but I often feel like Field of Dreams has become America’s movie.
So much about the movie works: the scenery, the casting, the fantastical story itself. We have author W.P. Kinsella to thank for the story. The movie is based on Kinsella’s book, “Shoeless Joe.”
Larry Gordon read the book and was instantly smitten. “I knew I was gonna make a movie,” he said. It wasn’t that easy. Gordon figures he knocked on more doors than he can count to raise funding for the project.
Phil Alden Robinson, also smitten by the book, wrote the screenplay and directed the film. The obvious story is that Costner’s character risks his farm to build his own baseball field. The underlying story is about the relationships of fathers and sons. Costner’s character longs to mend a fractured relationship with his long-dead father. And that’s where the movie really hits home with Larry Gordon.
You see, Gordon left Belzoni to attend first Tulane and then Ole Miss law school. In 1959, he left for Hollywood where he basically was doing odd jobs, working as an errand boy, eking out a living. His father pleaded with him to come back to the Delta and eventually inherit the furniture store. Gordon had other dreams.
“My father was bitterly disappointed in me,” Gordon said. “He thought what I was doing made no sense.”
A letter his father wrote to a friend in 1959 still hangs, framed, in Gordon’s office. In the letter, his father says Larry needs to learn he searching for something that doesn’t exist, that he needed to return to Mississippi and make something of himself. Shortly after the letter was written, Larry Gordon’s father died suddenly and unexpectedly.
When the letter reached Gordon more than a quarter century later, he was the president of 20th Century Fox.
All that makes Larry Gordon’s answer to one of my questions make all the more sense. What was he thinking as he watched the “Field of Dreams” game last week?
Answered Gordon, “You know, I was wishing my father was watching with me.”
View our chart showing the number of COVID-19 vaccinations — including first and second dose — reported in Mississippi each week since the week of Dec. 19, 2020, when vaccines first became available in the state. As of Wednesday, 36% of Mississippians were fully vaccinated, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health. View all of our latest COVID-19 in Mississippi case, death and vaccination data.
Beginning Monday, all schools in Smith County School District will shut down for a two-week period due to high numbers of COVID-19 cases and quarantines, a school member said.
Board member Jay Arrington said the school board met via phone on Tuesday and voted unanimously to shut down the schools beginning Monday, Aug. 23. The board made the decision to delay the two-week shutdown until Monday so parents had time to make plans and find child care.
Unlike last year, the Mississippi Department of Education is requiring schools to offer in-person learning as the primary mode of instruction this year. Schools also stand to lose out on federal relief funding if they do not operate primarily in person, though schools are allowed to operate virtually for a time in the event of COVID-19 outbreaks or other emergency events.
The district will not be implementing virtual learning because of connectivity issues for many of their students, Arrington said. He estimates only about 25% of students in the rural district have reliable internet access.
The 2,443 student district reported 104 positive cases in students, teachers and staff and nearly 700 people quarantined on Tuesday.
He said several schools, including Mize and Taylorsville which he represents, are struggling with adequate staffing.
“We have a lot of staff that are positive or quarantined, and we cannot operate the schools,” said Arrington.
A request for comment from Superintendent Nick Hillman was not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon.
Several community members gathered at Raleigh High School Sunday morning following Robinson’s death. Among those was Pastor Ronald Wilbon, Robinson’s cousin, who spoke to the crowd. Signs stating “America please shut it down!” were propped up against the front of the school as Wilbon spoke.
Arrington said students will be making up the days during a holiday break or extending the school year.
Mississippi Development Authority Director John Rounsaville’s announced resignation on Aug. 13 came after a state investigation into reports he sexually harassed and touched three subordinate female MDA employees at a Biloxi bar during a business conference in July, sources familiar with the investigation and incident told Mississippi Today.
Following the investigation, a recommendation was made to the governor on July 29 that Rounsaville’s employment be terminated, the sources said.
Gov. Tate Reeves, who appointed Rounsaville to the post in January, announced in an Aug. 13 press release that Rounsaville would be “stepping down to pursue new opportunity” effective Aug. 31 and praised Rounsaville’s “leadership at MDA.” The release quoted Rounsaville saying he wanted to spend more time with his wife and children and less time traveling.
When asked for comment, Rounsaville on Tuesday sent Mississippi Today a written statement: “I didn’t live up to my own standards or MDA’s standards. My behavior was not reflective of my character. I deeply regret that, and I apologize to everyone involved. I believed voluntarily resigning was the appropriate consequence. And, it was my hope to save MDA, my colleagues, and my family further embarrassment by doing so.”
Reeves’ office did not immediately respond to questions about Rounsaville’s resignation. Those questions include why the resignation announcement came 15 days after the final report that recommended Rounsaville’s termination, and why Rounsaville was allowed to stay on at the job for another two weeks after that. Reeves has been traveling frequently and was out of the state at times during the investigation. He returned sometime midweek before Rounsaville’s Friday resignation.
Often, when state employees resign, they make it effective at a month’s end to accrue more service time in the state retirement system. As MDA director, the state’s lead economic development official representing the state across the country and abroad, Rounsaville makes a state salary of $180,000 a year. MDA directors typically also receive a stipend from a consortium of private businesses under a 2012 state law. The total amount cannot exceed $250,000.
The incidents in question occurred on July 9, when Rounsaville, other MDA employees and economic development officials from across the state attended the Mississippi Economic Development Council annual conference at the Beau Rivage Casino Resort in Biloxi. Sometime in the early morning hours of July 9, Rounsaville and others were drinking in a still-crowded casino bar.
Sources said Rounsaville appeared intoxicated and propositioned the three female MDA employees for sex and rubbed against or touched them. One state government official familiar with the incident described it as Rounsaville being “obnoxious and drunk, hanging on to them and making inappropriate comments,” but said it was an isolated incident and out of character for Rounsaville, whom they otherwise defended.
Sources said the women were reluctant to report the incident, but that more than one non-MDA economic development official who witnessed it vowed they would report it if the women didn’t.
The women reported the incident to MDA’s human resources office the following week, the sources said. State government procedure for when such allegations are made against a department director is for the state personnel director, not the agency HR department, to investigate. As MDA director, Rounsaville reports directly to Reeves.
State Personnel Board Director Kelly Hardwick notified Rounsaville and the governor’s office of the complaints and started an investigation into the matter, sources said. Hardwick completed his investigation and submitted a report to Reeves on July 29, including a recommendation that Rounsaville either be fired or resign, the sources said. They said the investigation concluded there was no cause for state criminal or legal action against Rounsaville.
Citing an exemption of personnel records from the state’s open records laws, the state personnel director would not supply Mississippi Today a copy of the final report from the investigation into Rounsaville’s actions.
Hardwick, in a statement, said: “It is my understanding of state law that matters related to personnel issues are not public records. So then, I cannot share or disclose any information related to the investigations that I conduct without permission. I have no further comment on this matter.”
Mississippi Today also sent a request for correspondence and other records about the matter to Reeves’ office, which did not immediately respond to the request or questions.
The three women are still employed at MDA, and sources said to their knowledge none have filed criminal complaints or taken legal action against the state or Rounsaville.
It is Mississippi Today’s policy not to name alleged victims of sexual harassment or assault.
Under state personnel regulations, Reeves has great authority over direct-report officials and was not bound by the personnel recommendation to fire Rounsaville, ask him to resign or take any other disciplinary action.
MDA is the state’s lead economic and community development agency. As agency head, Rounsaville was overseeing about 300 employees. MDA works to recruit new businesses to the state and retain and expand existing industry and manages the state’s energy programs. MDA also promotes Mississippi as a tourism destination.
Reeves had appointed Rounsaville as permanent MDA director after he had served as interim since May of 2020.
Rounsaville previously served as state director for USDA Rural Development for the President Donald Trump administration, a post he also held from 2006 to 2008 under President George W. Bush. Rounsaville served as deputy chief of staff and other roles for former U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering and as a policy adviser to former Gov. Haley Barbour.
Rounsaville is a decorated military veteran, serving as a JAG and major at the 186th in the Mississippi Air Force National Guard. He is a master’s graduate of Mississippi State University and received a law degree from the University of Mississippi.
In 2017, then-Gov. Phil Bryant issued an executive order that requires all state employees to take online sexual harassment training, after the state Department of Public Safety and Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics paid settlements in two separate lawsuits alleging sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation. Two high ranking DPS officials resigned over one of the cases, but not until after news reports came out months after the settlements.
At the time, Bryant said: “Everyone deserves a workplace free from intimidation and hostility. I will not tolerate sexual harassment in those agencies that fall under my control.”
