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The University of Mississippi Medical Center announced an amendment to its vaccination policy on Friday that will require, with limited exceptions, employees and students to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by November. 

UMMC first announced a vaccine requirement on July 15, but it was not set to be triggered until the mRNA COVID vaccines received full approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Originally, staff and students were going to be allowed to wear an N95 mask until then, but that will no longer be a sufficient substitute for being vaccinated. 

Dr. Alan Jones, UMMC’s associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs and COVID-19 clinical response leader, announced the policy change in an internal letter on Friday and said that the revised policy was motivated by the recent increase in cases and hospitalizations sparked by the Delta variant.

“COVID-19 in Mississippi is a raging wildfire, but not everyone is helping throw water on the flames in their own backyard,” Jones wrote. “We, as an institution and as the workforce for the state’s leading health system, need to be a leader in this fight.”

In the internal memo, Jones cited this graph created by Financial Times with data from John Hopkins University that shows Mississippi is leading the world in new COVID-19 cases per capita.

“Taking steps to protect our patients is priority one. And having a fully vaccinated health care workforce is the only way to meet that standard,” Jones wrote.

The vaccination policy will be implemented across three phases. Managers and supervisors will be required to show proof of vaccination by Sept. 15, all other employees by Oct. 1 and students by Nov. 1. There will be a limited exemption policy, and any employee or student who wants a special accommodation must submit a request by Sept. 10.

Many colleges and universities across the country have already announced vaccination mandates for the coming school year, as have many health care providers and other employers. In Mississippi, UMMC is the first public higher ed institution to require the COVID-19 vaccine for students.

The delta variant has considerably increased the already high risks posed by the virus to unvaccinated people. Between July 20 and Aug. 16, 98% of the nearly 58,000 COVID-19 infections in Mississippi were among the unvaccinated. During that period, the same group also accounted for 89% of hospitalizations and 86% of deaths.

Dr. LouAnn Woodward, UMMC’s chief executive, gave a blunt speech on Tuesday where she decried the decision of so many Mississippians to decline the vaccine, despite the great protection to offers for them and their families.

“We as a state, as a collective, have failed to respond in a unified way to a common threat,” Woodward said. 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. “

There has been a significant uptick in vaccinations in Mississippi in recent weeks due to the havoc the delta variant is wreaking across the state and its healthcare system. However, despite the wide availability of vaccines and the risks posed by variants, Mississippi continues to rank last in the nation in the number of vaccine doses given per capita. With over 2.4 million shots administered, only 36% of Mississippians have been fully vaccinated.

The post UMMC to require students and employees receive COVID-19 vaccine by Nov. 1 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Jason Isbell, a Grammy-winning Americana/Roots artist, has canceled his Oct. 8 concert at the city-owned Brandon Amphitheater in Rankin County.

Isbell was one of the first of what is now a growing number of national musical acts to require a COVID-19 vaccination or proof of a negative coronavirus test for concert attendees.

On Friday afternoon, Southeastern Records, the label founded by Isbell, said on social media that Isbell and his band, The 400 Unit, would no longer be performing in Brandon.

“Unfortunately, the powers that be were not willing to comply with the band’s updated health and safety standards,” the label said on social media.

State Rep. Fred Shanks, R-Brandon, who also is the general manager for the Brandon Amphitheater, said earlier this week that the Brandon board of aldermen was working “with his people” to try to reach an agreement. Shanks could not be reached for comment Friday.

As COVID-19 cases soar across the country, Isbell has stated that his requirement of a vaccine or negative COVID-19 test within the past 48 hours to attend his concerts was initiated in an attempt to ensure public safety, and to try to prevent the shutdown of live music that occurred earlier in the pandemic before vaccines were available.

“I don’t think it’s fair to the audience or to the crews at the venues or to my crew to put people in a situation where they’re possibly risking their lives or taking the virus home to their kids, or they go to school and give it to other kids,” Isbell said in a lengthy interview with Rolling Stone. “It just didn’t feel right. I pride myself, and I have always prided myself, on being successful at a job where nobody gets hurt.”

He added, “That little thing that I love the most about the job that I have is the fact that it spreads something positive. I want to protect that. I don’t want to spread positive tests. I want to spread positive vibes.”

Isbell already has scheduled a concert for Oct. 8 at the Graceland Soundstage in Memphis to replace the Brandon show.

It is not clear whether the COVID-19 surge will impact any other shows in Brandon. Mississippi, per capita, currently has the most COVID-19 cases in the world, and venues in the state are following Isbell’s lead.

Duling Hall, located in the Fondren area of Jackson, has announced people will need a vaccination or a proof of a negative COVID-19 test within the past 48 hours to attend any of the multiple concerts scheduled for the venue starting Aug. 30.

“Implementing this measure will allow musicians to earn a living, our staff to be employed and live music to have a place in society again,” a Duling Hall social media statement said.

The Lyric Theater in Oxford has instituted the same guidelines for its shows.

The post Jason Isbell calls off Brandon concert because venue won’t require proof of COVID vaccine or negative test appeared first on Mississippi Today.

View a gallery of photos taken by photographers from University of Mississippi Medical Center Communications showing a behind-the-scenes look at the recent rise of COVID-19 cases inside the state’s largest medical center.

READ MORE OF OUR COVERAGE: ‘We are in trouble’: Dr. LouAnn Woodward delivers desperate plea to Mississippians as COVID crisis worsens

The post Photo gallery: UMMC and the rise of COVID-19 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and Mississippi Department of Health (MSDH) plan to have the first groups of contract medical workers in hospitals across the state early next week. 

As of Friday, MEMA has received requests for additional healthcare workers from 60 hospitals across the state. MEMA plans to fulfill all of the requests it received and to deploy around 1,100 workers to these hospitals over the next eight weeks. MSDH is working to validate the licensing for around 10% of the workers it hopes to deploy, according to MEMA Executive Director Stephen McCraney. 

McCraney also said that once all 57 requests have been fulfilled, it would open up 680 med-surge beds and 212 ICU beds that are currently unstaffed.

“That’s going to take some pressure off of the medical system in which it currently finds itself because of this pandemic,” McCraney said. 

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.

The contract workers will cost around $8 million per week, but the federal government will reimburse 100% of those costs. Gov. Tate Reeves said the state typically receives a 50% advance for Stafford Act requests like this, and the state has the cash flow to cover the other half until that is also reimbursed. 

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect how many hospitals requested additional workers and how many will be placed in Mississippi.

The post MEMA to deploy 1,100 contract healthcare workers over next two months appeared first on Mississippi Today.

According to Michael Hohl, Jackson Free Clinic outreach officer, by traveling to immigrant communities across the state, the JFC is helping to reduce barriers of access, such as transportation to clinics or having to take off work to travel or be vaccinated. He also said collaborating with the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity and the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, known and trusted organizations within Hispanic and immigrant communities in Mississippi, are vital to the success of the vaccination drives.

View our data on COVID-19 rates among Hispanic Mississippians below:

READ THE STORY: Mississippi groups host vaccine drives for immigrants

LEER: COVID-19 en Misisipi Guía de Vacunas

The post Data: COVID-19 among Hispanic Mississippians appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The board for Natchez-Adams schools on Tuesday took the next step to require district employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccination.

The board voted unanimously to approve a four-part proposal that includes all employees getting vaccinated within a 30-day period of being notified and an incentive program to encourage vaccinations. The plan also proposes the board and administration meet with individuals who refuse to be vaccinated to determine next steps.

If Natchez-Adams moves forward with such a policy, it would be the first known school district in the state to do so. A spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Education said the department is not aware of any other school districts that have adopted such a policy.

Phillip West, the vice chair of the school board and a former state legislator and mayor of Natchez, introduced the proposal.

“We’re hoping the requirement of all employees to do this coming from the board should hopefully show them the seriousness of our actions as it relates to making sure that the kids are safe and their coworkers are safe,” said West.

West said the superintendent reported about 60% of employees in the district are already fully vaccinated.

Officials approved the proposal unanimously but have differing understandings of what it means. West said there are plans to draft a letter to employees early next week, thus starting the 30-day countdown for them to be vaccinated. But Board President Amos James said all the board did was vote unanimously to “look” at a policy.

Board attorney Bruce Kuehnle said the vote “put things in motion” for developing a comprehensive policy for the board to consider in the future.

West said he and other board members are still considering how the district will handle unvaccinated employees. One option is requiring them to submit to routine screening testing, he said.

“It’s going to be on a case-by-case basis once we see what the numbers (of employees who decline to be vaccinated) are that will dictate what kind of actions we will consider as a consequence,” said West.

Mississippi is currently facing a fourth wave of COVID infections, and the number of cases in children is rapidly rising. As of Thursday, 34% of Adams County residents were fully vaccinated, according to the Mississippi Department of Health. Forty-three percent had received at least one dose.

The county currently has test positivity rate of 23% in the week ending Aug. 14, the most recent for which data is available.

The city of Jackson recently announced it would require employees to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing. Last month the University of Mississippi Medical Center announced a new vaccination policy that will eventually require employees and students to get fully vaccinated after the vaccines receive full authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The post Natchez-Adams School District poised to require employees to get COVID-19 vaccination appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The coronavirus pandemic was mentioned just a handful of times during the Institutions of Higher Learning’s nearly two-hour-long meeting Thursday, even though classes at Mississippi’s public universities started this week amid the worst wave yet of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The sole discussion of the pandemic from the 12-member board was limited to a request on the finance agenda to suspend the IHL’s regular approval process for contracts and other agreements relating to the universities’ “ability to promptly and effectively provide for the safety and health of … students, employees and guests in dealing with the Covid19 pandemic.” 

The IHL meeting happened the same day that the State Board of Education, which oversees Mississippi’s K-12 schools, unanimously voted to allow school districts to implement hybrid learning through Oct. 31 due to the increase in COVID-19 cases among school-aged children. 

According to data from the Mississippi Department of Health, last week 20,334 students were in quarantine across 803 schools. More than 7,400 students, teachers and staff had tested positive for the virus. 

Because the universities are not required to report COVID cases to MSDH the same way K-12 schools are, it will be difficult to track the spread of the virus on campus or in the surrounding communities. Last year, the fall semester saw two outbreaks at Mississippi University for Women and UM. All eight universities had implemented comprehensive plans to keep faculty, staff and students safe that included moving courses online, reducing in-person class sizes, and shortening the fall semester to prevent the spread of coronavirus during Thanksgiving break.

Many of those measures won’t be taken this semester, despite all-time high case numbers and a delta variant that is more prominent in college-aged people. All universities are requiring students to wear masks in indoor facilities due to a directive from MSDH. 

None of the universities are requiring students or faculty to get vaccinated, the best prevention strategy against COVID-19, despite hundreds of faculty across the state requesting they do so. At University of Southern Mississippi, nearly 200 faculty have requested that classes move online due to the surge in COVID cases. 

Classes started this week at MUW, Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Mississippi State University, and Mississippi Valley State University. 

At the end of the meeting, the eight university presidents presented updates to the board. Mention of the COVID-19 pandemic was limited. ASU president Felicia Nave and MUW president Nora Miller briefly touched on the vaccine clinics that are being hosted on campus. 

“It feels close to normal,” Miller told the trustees. 

Jackson State University is rewarding students who show proof they’ve been vaccinated with a $1,000 housing credit, President Thomas Hudson said. MVSU President Jerryl Briggs and MSU President Mark Keenum presented the results of campus surveys. At MVSU, Briggs said 70% of students living on campus have reported being vaccinated. Keenum said that of the 17,000 students who completed MSU’s survey, 52% reported being vaccinated. 

“We don’t know if that’s fully vaccinated,” Keenum said, “but we do know they’ve had at least one shot.” 

DSU President William LaForge was the only one to present COVID case numbers to the board. 

“The climate so far with respect to COVID cases is good and healthy,” he told the board. “We only have one or two students and employees who have tested positive in the last couple of weeks.” 

Rodney Bennett, USM’s president, told the trustees he could not think of a time when students were more excited to return to campus. 

“I am proud of them for embracing health protocols,” he said. “They want to be in-person all year … and I want that for them too.” 

University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce referenced the COVID-19 pandemic just one time during his 11-minute-long update. He told the trustees that he is working on getting the marching band fully vaccinated so they don’t miss any games this upcoming football season. 

Afterwards, Boyce sought to turn the mic over to his colleague, University of Mississippi Medical Center Vice Chancellor Dr. LouAnn Woodward. 

“I don’t know if Dr. Woodward is on, but if she is, I’d love her to make some comments about UMMC,” he said over Zoom. 

“I’m sorry, she is off handling our COVID response elsewhere on campus,” a representative from UMMC responded.

The post IHL board chooses not to focus on the pandemic as COVID cases surge appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Kayla Dowdle of Nesbit was looking forward to a rare beach getaway with friends. As the mother of four — including two-year-old twins — and a nurse, kid-free vacations were hard to come by.

But when her five-year-old started complaining of ear pain and showing signs of conjunctivitis, or pink eye, in the days before her trip, she had a feeling something was off. She took him to his pediatrician on July 20, and a nurse practitioner assessed him. He wasn’t coughing or feverish.

“The nurse practitioner came in and said it’s most likely something viral,” recalled Dowdle. “I asked if she would mind COVID testing him because I know conjunctivitis can be a symptom in children.”

The nurse practitioner pushed back and said she didn’t think a test was necessary. 

“She said ‘it would be highly unlikely’ if it were COVID. I said, ‘Just humor me and test him,’” said Dowdle.

Her son Maverick’s test came back positive, and the nurse practitioner was shocked. Dowdle said she told her Maverick was the clinic’s first positive test they had seen in a while. 

Within three days, all three of her other children were showing the same symptoms as her son. 

Pediatricians and infectious disease doctors in Mississippi have reached a conclusion: This is a different coronavirus than last year’s. 

And while they’re not sure whether the delta variant is more virulent, or causes more severe illness in children, they are sure of this: there is far, far more of it. A Mississippi Today analysis shows an 830% increase in the number COVID-19 cases in children for the first two weeks of school in 2021 compared to the first two weeks this data was reported last August.

As for Dowdle, she and her husband did their best to keep everyone masked and separated in different rooms of the house.  

“It was very hard to keep them separated. On day one (two-year-old) Sutton found a cup of Maverick’s and drank out of it,” she remembered. Dowdle and her husband both managed to stay well, but the virus jumped quickly from child to child.

“It moved through our entire household in a matter of days,” she said.

Thankfully each of her children recovered after about two days of symptoms, but Dowdle was, and still is, on the lookout for another serious potential effect of the coronavirus: multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C. The condition, which can lead to hospitalization and even death, commonly occurs four to six weeks after COVID-19 infection in children. 

Children’s of Mississippi saw its largest number of children hospitalized with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 on Thursday, with 28 children requiring hospital care. Eight of those were in the intensive care unit. 

State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs tweeted Thursday that cases among youth are "increasing rapidly." 

The hospital is “seeing the consequences” of the reluctance to require masks in schools and the overall low vaccination rate of adults, said Dr. Charlotte Hobbs, professor of pediatric infectious disease and microbiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

READ MORE: Which Mississippi school districts are requiring masks?

“Right now we have intense community transmission of (COVID-19) with a large proportion of the vaccine-eligible population remaining unvaccinated,” she said.

A recent report from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows children are making up an increasingly large share of the country’s total infections. Over 121,000 cases — what the group calls a “continuing substantial increase” — were added during the week ending Aug. 12, an over 400% jump from this time last month. Infections in children made up 18% of all COVID-19 cases reported during that same time frame.  

While the organization said it appears at this time severe illness due to coronavirus in children is uncommon, there is “an urgent need” to collect more data on long-term impacts of the pandemic in children — including their physical health. 

Hobbs said many children who are hospitalized with COVID at Children’s of Mississippi have underlying conditions such as obesity and diabetes, but they are also seeing previously healthy children in the hospital. The mother of a 13-year-old girl from Raleigh who died shortly after being diagnosed with COVID-19 told WLOX her daughter was a healthy child with no underlying conditions. 

And not only are more children getting sick with the hyper transmissible delta variant, there are fewer treatment options for them than for adults, Hobbs said.

Lacey Outlaw of Madison said she feels grateful and lucky her five-year-old had a mild case of coronavirus when she tested positive July 23. She had been complaining of a sore throat and had a fever the night before. 

Outlaw and her husband are both vaccinated, and they didn’t get sick. 

“I thought I had a scratchy throat one day, but it may have been me just psyching myself out. I was trying not to freak out, waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she said. 

Because a vaccine for the 5 to 12-year-old age range has not yet been approved, the best thing Mississippians can do to protect children is to get vaccinated themselves, said Dr. Anita Henderson, a Hattiesburg pediatrician and the president of the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatricians.

“The more adults, the more teenagers that are vaccinated, the less likely someone is going to bring COVID back home to the child,” said Henderson. 

The post COVID-19 cases in children rapidly increasing in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Jackie Turner, the executive director of Mississippi’s Department of Employment Security, will be retiring from her position next month — the latest of numerous top staffers or appointees of Gov. Tate Reeves to leave state government in recent months.

Turner, who oversees the state agency that doles out unemployment benefits, announced her departure in an email to staff on Tuesday afternoon. She has been working with the employment security office for more than two decades and has spent the last 34 years as a state employee.

“With that in mind, it’s time for me to retire and spend more time with family and the care of my elderly parents,” Turner said in the email, which was obtained by Mississippi Today. “This is a very special, bitter-sweet occasion for me.”

In the email, she called her tenure as executive director “the honor of a lifetime.” Turner’s last day, according to the email, will be Sept. 30. MDES did not respond to a request for comment.

Former Gov. Phil Bryant appointed Turner to the position in 2019, and she was re-appointed by current Gov. Tate Reeves in early 2020. She had previously served as the department’s deputy executive director.

Turner is the second agency head appointed by Reeves who announced they will leave a major state government post in two weeks. Last week, Reeves announced Mississippi Development Authority Director John Rounsaville will resign on Aug. 31.

Mississippi Today later reported that Rounsaville’s resignation came after an investigation into whether he sexually harassed three subordinate MDA employees. After that reporting, Reeves announced Rounsaville would be on administrative leave through his last day.

In recent weeks, Reeves has been hemorrhaging staff. Since Mississippi Today reported in late June that Reeves has lost four senior staffers and several policy staff since he took office in 2020, four additional staffers have left his office.

READ MORE: Other governors use bully pulpits, incentives to urge vaccination. Where’s Gov. Reeves?

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