The University of Mississippi Medical Center will open a second field hospital in one of its parking garages, another attempt at propping up a hospital system on the verge of collapse due to a surge of COVID-19 patients.
Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian humanitarian aid organization, will build and staff the field hospital, which is expected to contain 30-50 patient beds. An estimated 5-10 of those beds will be ICU beds. None of the 50 or so beds in the field hospital UMMC opened on Friday are ICU level.
Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and son of the late Christian evangelist Billy Graham, tweeted a picture Sunday morning of three loaded trucks and trailers en route to Mississippi.
This is the latest development in a period where MEMA is seeking out any help it can get from the federal government and the private sector to get Mississippi hospitals staffing that is desperately needed.
Over the past week, Mississippi broke its single-day COVID-19 case record three times. On Wednesday, Dr. Alan Jones, UMMC associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs, said that “failure of the hospital system in Mississippi” would occur within 5-10 days if the rate of hospitalizations did not subside. It has not.
The staffing crisis at UMMC is so dire that the hospital has enlisted the help of second year medical student volunteers to keep the original field hospital operating. The volunteers are not treating patients, but transporting them to and from the field hospital, as well as other upkeep duties like bringing meals and changing bed linens.
On this episode of Mississippi Stories, Dr. Dan Edney joins Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey to discuss the current delta variant wave crushing Mississippi’s healthcare system.
Daniel P. Edney, MD, FACP, chief medical officer and regional health officer for the Central Public Health Region for the Mississippi Department has practiced medicine in Vicksburg, Mississippi for 30 years. Edney, a native of Greenville, Miss., is a graduate of the University of Mississippi Medical School, where he graduated with summa cum laude distinction and numerous other honors. He has served on the staff of Medical Associates of Vicksburg and most recently as the medical director for several local nursing homes and hospice services, as well as the addictionologist for several mental health facilities.
Edney gives an inside look of how the delta variant is affecting Mississippi’s struggling healthcare systems and gives tips on how you can protect you and your family.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has been the sole member of the state’s political triumvirate, which also includes Gov. Tate Reeves and Speaker Philip Gunn, to not categorically reject expanding Medicaid.
Hosemann has said multiple times that all options should be on the table in terms of expanding health care access for Mississippians. That sentiment has given hope to health care providers and others who support expanding Medicaid.
At last month’s Neshoba County Fair political speakings, the Republican again gave Medicaid expansion supporters reason for hope.
“We are working on making healthcare more accessible and affordable in Mississippi,” he said. “The time for simply saying ‘no’ to our options for working Mississippians has passed. When a cancer diagnosis can bankrupt a family, we have a responsibility to help. Further, no Mississippian should be further than 30 minutes from an emergency room.
“This fall, the Senate will hold hearings and dig deeper into the delivery of healthcare in our state. From managed care, to scope of practice issues, to insurance options, everything is on the table.”
In the same fair speech, Hosemann reiterated one of his top priorities: increasing Mississippi’s dismal workforce participation rate.
“We are working on getting our fellow Mississippians back to work. Our labor force participation rate still sits at 56% — the second lowest in the nation and not improving with the pandemic shutdown,” Hosemann said, pointing out the workforce participation rate was bad before COVID-19 and remains bad.
Perhaps Hosemann could help achieve his goal of increasing the state’s workforce participation rate by expanding Medicaid.
Tim Alford of Kosciusko was a family medicine doctor for about 30 years before the grandfather of 10 made what some might see as the questionable decision to lighten his workload as the COVID-19 pandemic hit: He became a full-time emergency room doctor in his hometown.
At any rate, Alford has for years been talking about people who work jobs — often multiple jobs — without health care until they get ill with a chronic condition and can no longer work. If the condition had been treated earlier through preventive medicine, that person most likely could have managed his or her illness and continued to work.
Just like heart disease, diabetes, mental illness or many of the other maladies that impact Mississippians, “If people do not have health insurance, that is a medical problem,” Alford said. “They often end up in the emergency room where they are treated with a glorified Band-Aid that may or may not work.”
The emergency room, Alford pointed out, is not the place for effective preventive care.
The workforce participation rate references the percentage of working-age people with jobs. It makes a certain depressing logic that people who no longer work because of a debilitating condition would contribute to the state’s low workforce participation rate. And the sad irony is that if the person with that disability, which perhaps could have been avoided with proper medical care, qualifies for Social Security because of that disability, then that person is automatically eligible for the costlier-to-the-state, existing Medicaid program.
“It is so disappointing to see so many people not be able to function in society where with just a little investment on the front end in health care, they would be able to function,” said Alford.
Medicaid expansion was designed to provide health care coverage to primarily the working poor. It has been enacted in 38 states where the federal government pays 90% of the costs. In addition, the federal government is offering Mississippi more than $600 million in additional funds over a two-year period as an incentive to expand.
Alford cites the state’s high instances of people with schizophrenia as an example where Medicaid expansion could lead to better workforce participation rates. Often people with the mental disease lack the capacity to routinely take their medication to control it. He said a program like the state Health Department’s tuberculosis monitoring program, where staff members actually go to people’s homes to ensure they take their medicine, would be effective in dealing with those suffering from schizophrenia. If the people were on regular medication, Alford said they could be functioning members of society.
Hosemann talks about increasing the workforce participation rate and improving access to health care.
Maybe the next step is determining whether Medicaid expansion can help with both goals. Perhaps deep down, Hosemann already knows the answer to that.
“When our working Mississippians are healthy, they are holding down jobs, contributing to their communities, and supporting their families,” Hosemann said at the Neshoba County Fair. “We should treat our neighbors as ourselves.”
View our Data Dive showing the current requirements on masks and face coverings from public colleges and universities in Mississippi for the 2021 fall semester. As of Friday, every public college and university in Mississippi is requiring students, faculty and staff to wear masks indoors.
Mississippi is one of 11 states — including Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming — that currently do not require a COVID-19 vaccination to attend their schools.
Mississippi Today reviewed the mask requirements for each institution through social media accounts, phone calls and examination of the updates posted to each school’s website.
We will update this searchable and downloadable chart regularly as public institutions of higher education navigate the latest COVID-19 restrictions affecting college campuses.
To view an individual school's COVID-19 reopening plans and updates, click here.
This is part of Mississippi Today's Data Dive, a series of data-focused stories to help break down crucial news and information for Mississippians.
Gov. Tate Reeves and State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the two most public faces in Mississippi’s fight to curtail COVID-19, both have touted their cooperative working relationship during their countless joint news conferences on the coronavirus.
While they remained cordial on Friday in their first joint news conference in months, make no mistake about it: There were some significant differences in their messaging as COVID-19 cases surge to record numbers and as federal employees, funds and resources are being brought in to try to ensure the state’s health care system does not collapse.
Most of those differences centered around wearing — or not wearing — masks to slow the spread of the virus.
Reeves, the Republican governor, said that there is not much reason for people who are vaccinated to wear masks.
“When you’re looking at trying to get additional people vaccinated, telling them, ‘Yeah, you should get vaccinated, but you are still going to have to do all the same things,’ it tends to curb vaccinations,” Reeves said during Friday’s 90-minute news conference in his office in the Sillers office building. “There should be some reward for having people get vaccinated.”
Dobbs, a veteran physician, said there are multiple reasons for a vaccinated person to wear a mask in certain situations. The physician gave the example of a mother and son he tested. The son, who had not been vaccinated, was symptomatic and tested positive for COVID-19. Dobbs said the mother, who had been vaccinated, had no symptoms. She felt fine.
But he said the mother had “one of the highest viral loads I had seen. Totally asymptomatic. It is these asymptomatic carrier situations that make us worry a little bit.”
More than 90% of people, according to scientific data cited by Dobbs, do not get sick from the coronavirus if vaccinated. But Dobbs speculated that a much larger number — maybe as high as one-third of the vaccinated — could be asymptomatic carriers.
Dobbs said he believes people should avoid indoor crowds when possible, but should wear masks when indoors around people whose vaccination status is unknown.
He said if he had the opportunity to go to Washington, D.C., he would probably go to an outdoor ballgame. “But I am not going to a bar,” Dobbs added. “There is a way to be safe, but also to do stuff. I think the phase we are in now is the phase of doing things safely.”
Reeves told a reporter wearing a mask during the news conference if he was worried about infecting someone else he should not leave his home. Standing just feet from the state’s top doctor, Reeves claimed the reporter was “virtue signaling.”
Reeves’ aversion to any mention of masks began last month at the Neshoba County Fair political speakings where he called “foolish” the current U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommendation for everyone, including the vaccinated, to mask up indoors when the vaccination status of everyone in the room is not known.
The CDC recommendation is essentially the same as what Dobbs has said.
“Mask in public and use commonsense,” Dobbs said on Friday.
Reeves conceded that there might be “a marginal benefit” to wearing a mask. “The vaccine, if it works, it works… Maybe wearing a mask is a little bit better,” Reeves said.
Based on that belief, the governor said he had no intention of issuing any mask mandates. He reiterated that he would leave it up to local school districts to determine whether to mandate masks.
Reeves said there are risks associated with most functions in life.
“What each individual needs to decide is the level of risk they are willing to assume,” Reeves said.
When asked, Dobbs said he did believe wearing masks in the schools curtailed the spread of the coronavirus.
On the issue of the vaccine, Reeves, as he has in the past, told people he had been vaccinated and believed other should also take the vaccination.
“We believe the vaccine is effective. We believe it is safe,” the governor said.
Of the vaccine, Dobbs said, “We have confirmed 7,500 plus deaths from COVID (in Mississippi) and zero from the vaccine.”
“There is so much misinformation out there,” Dobbs added, saying people in 100 years will say of the current COVID-19 debate, “Oh my gosh, what a colossal communications failure because we allowed the misinformation to drown out reality.”
John Rounsaville, appointed by Gov. Tate Reeves in January to lead the Mississippi Development Authority, is resigning effective Aug. 31, Reeves’ office announced in a short press release late Friday afternoon.
Reeves in the statement thanked Rounsaville for his service and said, “I wish John the best in his future endeavors.” The release said details regarding the search process will be announced in coming weeks.
Rounsaville in a statement in the press release said: “It has been a tremendous honor to serve Mississippi under the leadership of Governor Reeves. I am confident MDA is on a strong trajectory … With a young family and a new baby born last year, my wife and I believe it is time to pursue a new opportunity that will enable me to focus more on my family and spend less time traveling.”
MDA is the state’s lead economic and community development agency, and employs about 300 people. It 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.
Rounsaville had replaced Glenn McCullough Jr., who served as MDA director under former Gov. Phil Bryant from 2015 through January of 2020.
Rounsaville previously served as state director for USDA Rural Development for the President 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 policy adviser to former Gov. Haley Barbour.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) is evaluating 19 bids from private contractors to provide the state with desperately needed medical staff.
During a press conference on Friday, Gov. Tate Reeves said the state hopes to put staff on the ground within the next week from one or more of the companies who submitted bids. The federal government will reimburse 100% of the cost for these services.
More than 2,000 medical professionals have left the field in Mississippi over the past year, and hospitals across the state are at a breaking point. MEMA Executive Director Stephen McCraney said these workers will be able to help these hospitals utilize units and beds they cannot currently.
“We don’t need to necessarily build a hospital in certain times, we need to fill the beds that we have,” McCraney said.
MEMA received requests for 1,378 additional healthcare workers from 73 different hospitals across the state. It’s unclear how many of these will be supplied through those private contracts. The requested staff includes: 65 physicians, 920 nurses, 41 certified registered nurse anesthetists, 59 nurse practitioners, 34 physician assistants, 239 respiratory technicians, and 20 emergency medical technician paramedics.
If this staffing level can be provided, 771 med-surge beds and 235 ICU beds would be opened up, according to Reeves.
McCraney said that there is no deadline on the state’s ability to utilize these private contracts, noting that MEMA still has contractors on the ground from the state’s response to Hurricane Katrina. They will contract with additional private sector partners to cycle out contracted staff if necessary.
“Whatever it takes to get this pandemic across the finish line, that’s what we’re gonna do,” McCraney said… “There’s only so long that an ICU nurse can stay on target for seven days a week. Gotta give them a rest period, so we’ve factored all of that in, and we’re ready to go.”
McCraney also said the federal government had approved a request for 150 additional ventilators. The state has also submitted a request for 10 monoclonal antibody therapy teams to treat positive COVID-19 patients to try and keep them from being hospitalized.
Though some requests from the state have already been approved and others are pending, one has been denied: a request for the military hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, and the 550 medical personnel on board to be sent to Mississippi.
Reeves said FEMA administrators told him on Thursday that the ship served very few patients in New York City when it was docked there early in the pandemic. Still, Reeves said the request was more about the medical personnel on board than the actual facilities on the ship itself.
“We would welcome any of the 550 healthcare professionals that are on that particular facility that the federal government would like to send us,” Reeves said.
As the delta variant of COVID-19 continues its surge across the state and Mississippi’s hospital system faces imminent failure, medical experts and some elected officials continue to urge Mississippians to get vaccinated. Vaccines, according to medical researchers, are nearly as effective against the delta variant as the original strain and minimize the chance of infection and nearly eliminate the risks of developing serious illness.
According to Mississippi State Department of Health data, 83% of the people who died from COVID-19 from July 15 through Wednesday, were unvaccinated, while 17% were fully vaccinated people who experienced breakthrough infections, or infections when someone is fully vaccinated. During the same period, unvaccinated people made up 98% of the state’s cases and 89% of hospitalizations.
View our interactive graph of the vaccination status among people who have contracted, died of and/or been hospitalized due to COVID-19 or related complications since July 15.
