Good Wednesday morning everyone! It is pleasant this morning with temperatures in the upper 60s across the area! An upper level trough is giving us below normal temperatures, along with lower humidity. We will see mostly sunny skies today, with a high near 89. Rain chances remain near zero. North wind around 5mph. Tonight will be mostly clear with a low around 66. Enjoy the nice weather, because Highs get back up to 96 degrees by Saturday!
Marshall Ramsey: Moving Right Along
The post Marshall Ramsey: Moving Right Along appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Reeves delays start of school only in hot spots, orders statewide mask mandate
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Gov. Tate Reeves and Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs speak to the media about the coronavirus during a press conference at the Governor’s Mansion in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, March 26, 2020.
Going against the advice of the state’s top health officer and other Mississippi medical experts, Gov. Tate Reeves on Tuesday announced admittedly “piecemeal” orders that allow most schools to reopen now even as the state sees record numbers of COVID-19 cases.
“I believe in my heart we have got to get our kids back in school,” Reeves said, and reiterated a recent theme: “I believe it’s better, whenever possible, to allow local leaders to determine plans for their schools.”
Reeves is issuing an executive order to “pump the brakes” for grades seven through 12 in eight COVID-19 “hot spot” counties. The schools in Bolivar, Coahoma, Forrest, George, Hinds, Panola, Sunflower and Washington counties are affected by the executive order, which pushes their start date to Aug. 17.
The order only applies to public schools, and schools that are already slated to reopen virtually can do so. Reeves’ order will require students and staff to wear masks in all schools and he also issued a statewide mask mandate — previously only 37 of 82 counties were under a mask mandate.
A Mississippi Today analysis shows the executive order affects less than 7% of students in the public school system, based on enrollment data from the 2019-20 school year. Many districts in these counties are already planning on a virtual opening or later start date.
The announcement comes as some schools in Mississippi have already reopened traditionally, and the state’s top health officials have come out publicly advocating for the governor to delay the return to the classroom.
“The governor’s plan, in its current form, is reckless and irresponsible,” said Erica Jones, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, which has asked to delay schools opening until at least Sep. 1. “It ignores the advice of the state’s top medical officials and is putting students and educators and their families at risk.”
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs last week had joined a chorus of other health officials and groups calling for Reeves to delay in-person schooling until early September. Dobbs had called earlier reopening, “crazy,” and said, “There’s nothing magic about August.”
On Tuesday, as he sat with Reeves at a press conference, he was less emphatic and said, “Let’s just behave for a couple of weeks. Our kids have got to get back to school.”
But Dobbs on Tuesday also said, “Quite honestly I believe some of the (schools’) plans could use a lot of work.”
School districts had to choose between in-person, virtual, or hybrid reopenings and submit plans to the Mississippi Department of Education by July 31. Reeves, who is the only person with the authority to delay school at the statewide level, said he spent the last few days reading 598 pages of reopening plans which led him to believe there was cause for an executive order.
“There will be plenty of time for Monday-morning quarterbacking,” Reeves said as he bristled at some media questions Tuesday. “My decisions are in real-time, based on what I think is best for the state of Mississippi.”
The governor acknowledged there was risk in this decision.
“Are there risks? Sure there are. I’m aware of those risks and still believe this is the best decision for our state.”
More than 465,000 children attend public schools in Mississippi, and more than 30,000 teachers and thousands of other staff are in the building with them each day.
Aliyah Shivers teaches fourth grade at Booker T. Washington Elementary in Clarksdale Municipal School District. She is also a parent to two toddler boys and thinks the governor should delay reopening all schools.
“Even though we’re virtual, the teacher may end up going in the classroom, so I’m forced to take my kids to daycare and they’re at risk to bring it back home,” Shivers said Tuesday. “(Reeves says) kids don’t carry the virus as much as adults, but they still can get it and bring it home. It’s just not safe.”
Mississippi’s statistics are not comforting either — Mississippi currently has the highest COVID-19 positivity rate in the country and the third-highest daily new case rate. Hospitalizations for the virus continue to rise, and the daily patient rolls nearly doubled in the past month.
“The numbers are constantly rising,” Shivers said. “I don’t see them going down anytime soon and I don’t see us trying to control it and we expect the kids to wear a mask and keep their hands clean and stay away from their friends?”
“Today I was really hoping (Reeves) would say we’re going to go to school virtually all over the state until we start seeing a major decrease in the cases,”
Trent Chess teaches at Coahoma Early College High School. He thinks districts should go virtual for the first nine weeks of school to give the state time for cases to decline.
“I just really think it’s crazy and it’s very risky,” to return to in-person schooling right now, he said. “I think we’re seeing more and more cases and more and more deaths associated with it and we just really don’t need to expose the children any more or us (as educators) any more than what we’re already exposed.”
In Bolivar County, the Cleveland School District has already delayed its hybrid start date to Sept. 8. Parent Latoya Shepard has two children enrolled in the district, and on Tuesday called the governor’s decision “pompous, arrogant and heartless.” Though she understands the governor is doing the best he can, she’d really hoped he would announce an all-virtual return to school until the state started seeing its case level drop, she said.
“My heart goes out to every parent in this state because we don’t know what we’re sending our children into,” she said.
“They have a fire drill, they have a drill for an active shooter is on the campus,” she said. “They have all of these drills, but what are you going to do when a child – are you waiting on a child to die in the district? That is my concern. When is he going to do something?”
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Airships Are No Longer a Relic of the Past; You Could Ride in One by 2023
As concern over climate change and rising temperatures grows, the airline industry is taking heat (pun intended). Flying accounts for 2.5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions; that’s lower than car travel and maritime shipping, but still a chunk worth acknowledging.
In some parts of the world people have started “flight-shaming,” that is, giving up air travel themselves and encouraging others to find alternative means of transport that are more climate-friendly. Sweden’s national flygskam campaign, which started in 2017, even led to a nine percent decrease in domestic air travel.
It’s possible to cut back on air travel, but given the globalized nature of business, the economy, and even families and friendships, we’re not going to stop needing a fast, relatively pain-free way to get across countries or around the globe; some things simply can’t be done over Zoom.
An unexpected potential solution is being floated (again, pun intended) by companies that believe people will be willing to trade a lot of time and money for a more planet-friendly way to travel: by airship.
What’s an Airship?
The term “airship” encompasses motorized craft that float due to being filled with a gas that’s lighter than air, like helium or hydrogen; blimps and zeppelins are the most common. Airships were used for bombings during World War I, and started carrying passengers in the late 1920s. In 1929 Germany’s Graf Zeppelin fully circled the globe, breaking the trip up into four legs and starting and ending in New Jersey; it took 22 days in total and carried 61 people. By the mid-1930s there were regular trans-Atlantic passenger flights.
Airships don’t need fuel to lift them off the ground, they just need it to propel them forward. Hydrogen was initially the lifting gas of choice, as it was cheap and abundant (and is lighter than helium). But the explosion of the Hindenburg in 1937 not only made the use of hydrogen all but defunct, it dismantled the passenger airship industry virtually overnight (interestingly, though, the Hindenburg wasn’t the deadliest airship disaster; it killed 36 people, but a crash 4 years prior killed 73 people).
Since then, airships have been relegated to use for large ads-in-the-sky, and before drones became commonplace they were used to take aerial photos at sporting events.
Comeback Kid
But passenger airships may soon be making a comeback, and more than one company is already banking on it. OceanSky Cruises—based, perhaps unsurprisingly, in Sweden—is currently taking reservations for expeditions to the North Pole in the 2023-2024 season. According to Digital Trends, a cabin for two is going for $65,000.
Carl-Oscar Lawaczeck, OceanSky Cruises’ CEO, points out several advantages airships have over planes; their environmental sustainability is just the beginning. “The possibilities are amazing when you compare airships with planes,” he said. “Everything is lighter and cheaper and easier and that gives a lot of possibilities.”
Airships have fewer moving parts, and they don’t need a runway to land on or take off from. They’re far more spacious and can carry larger and heavier loads.
If you cringe at the thought of 12 hours of stiff-backed, knee-crunched, parched-air flights, imagine something closer to a flying cruise ship: your own room, a bed, a restaurant and bar, maybe even a glass-floored observation room where you could see the landscape below drifting past in glorious detail.
Would all this make it worth the fact that 12 hours of travel would turn into 60? Airships travel at about one-fifth of the speed of planes; 20 knots versus 100. And nowadays the lifting gas of choice is helium, despite being expensive and scarce.
Join the Club
OceanSky is far from the only company pouring money into resurrecting the airship.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin also started an airship company. LTA (which stands for lighter than air!) Research and Exploration’s primary stated purpose is to build ultra-cheap craft to be used for humanitarian missions. The aforementioned lack of need for runways makes airships a promising and practical option for delivering supplies to remote, hard-to-reach locations.
To that end, Barry Prentice, who leads the Canadian company Buoyant Aircraft Systems International, hopes to use airships to transport pre-built structures for schools and housing to remote parts of Canada that lack good roads.
And earlier this year, French airship company Flying Whales (I mean, how can you not adore that name?) received $23 million in funding from the government of Quebec to build cargo-carrying Zeppelins.
Given our current pandemic-dominated reality, it’s hard to imagine a future of seamless global travel of any kind, much less on an airship. But that future will, thankfully, arrive (though when is anyone’s guess). As calls for climate action get louder and the costs associated with airships drop—as the cost of any new technology tends to do with time—we may find ourselves going retro and being ferried across the globe by giant helium-filled balloons.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd
‘We’re watching this train wreck’: UMMC chief says governor should postpone school reopenings
UMMC Communications
Dr. LouAnn Woodward, the vice chancellor of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, at a press conference at UMMC.
A top public health official said on Monday that Gov. Tate Reeves should postpone the return of public schools as Mississippi becomes one of the nation’s worst COVID-19 hotspots and the state’s hospital capacity dwindles.
Most public schools across the state plan to resume in-person activities this week. Reeves, who is the only state official with the authority to issue a blanket order to delay the start of school, is expected to announce a decision on the matter this week.
Dr. LouAnn Woodward, the vice chancellor of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said in an interview with Mississippi Today on Monday that reopening schools would place further strain on the state’s hospitals, which are struggling to keep up with the skyrocketing number of coronavirus patients.
“Those of us in healthcare feel like we’re watching this train wreck happen, and somehow even many of our friends are blind to it,” Woodward said of the state’s recent explosion of COVID-19 cases in a phone interview. “I think most people, when they’re thinking about reopening school and the logistics of that, are starting to understand some of that stress and strain on our healthcare system.”
Woodward continued: “In my heart, I want us to get back to school. There are a lot of children who really need to be in school for a variety of reasons. However, I don’t think we’re at a point right now where it’s the right, best and safe thing to do.”
Mississippi currently has the highest COVID-19 positivity rate in the country and the third-highest daily new case rate. COVID hospitalizations continue to rise, and the daily patient rolls nearly doubled in the past month. A recent report from George Washington University shows Mississippi is one of 11 states either at or nearing a shortage of ICU providers.
Reeves spent the weekend personally assessing reopening plans of the state’s 138 public school districts, which had to submit proposals to the state by Friday. The districts, thus far, have been given free rein to decide for themselves how and when to reopen, and most have opted to resume in-person instruction within the next week.
But last week, Reeves suggested he could delay the reopenings with a statewide mandate after reading the districts’ plans.
Reeves allowing Mississippi schools to reopen would send more than 465,000 students, more than 30,000 teachers and thousands of other school staffers back to the classrooms this months. Education advocates say already cash-strapped school districts can’t handle the demands of virus preparation and warn that students, teachers and staff will suffer. Health experts say allowing schools to reopen now will further strain the hospital system.
Woodward said that Reeves should delay the reopening of schools “until after Labor Day,” and that schools should be under strict mask mandates and have more testing capabilities when they do open.
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, Reeves’ top coronavirus adviser, also said in a Friday video session with the Mississippi State Medical Association that schools shouldn’t reopen until September.
“I was off,” Dobbs said in the video. “I thought maybe it would be the right time to start in August — until about a little while ago… I think it’s a good idea to delay school. There’s nothing magic about August.”
In recent days, Reeves has publicly warned of the dangers associated with children not returning to the classroom. Many parents are worried about how they’ll keep their jobs or handle childcare if their kids don’t start school on time. Parents and teachers alike have expressed concern over students’ wellbeing if they miss school and in-person interaction in a rural state where many districts lack the ability to provide adequate distance learning.
“The reopening of schools in this environment is a major challenge. I understand that,” Reeves said in a press conference on Thursday. “But to those individuals in our state who say the public health of the spread of the risk of the coronavirus is the only risk at play when making a decision about our schools are ignoring so many other risks that exist out there.”
Reeves continued: “We know that we are not going to mitigate 100% of the risk on either side of this equation. What we must do is look for innovative ways to reach what we all believe is the right outcome. And the right outcome longterm for kids is that they are in an environment that is loving and produces and provides an educational opportunity.”
As he weighs the schools decision, Reeves is also drawing scorn for not issuing a statewide mask mandate, as most other states have done, and Mississippi’s COVID statistics continue to worsen. As of Monday, Mississippians in 37 of the state’s 82 counties — representing more than half of the state’s population — were required to wear masks in public because of an executive order from Reeves.
Several medical professionals and local politicians have questioned why Reeves has ordered mask mandates for individual counties that are already seeing spikes in cases rather than being more proactive with a statewide mandate and stopping the virus spread before it begins.
In the Monday interview, Woodward reiterated that UMMC and most of the state’s largest hospitals don’t currently have the space or staffing to keep up with the state’s rising COVID hospitalizations.
“The thing I would emphasize is the fatigue of health care workers,” Woodward said. “They are frazzled, and they are worn out. There is no definite end in sight for the work they’re going to have to be doing. Now we know this pandemic is not going to go on for 10 years, but still you’re talking about months. For their stamina and their ability to continue to give everything they have, we need buy-in from the public with mask wearing and distancing. We need this to be taken seriously.”
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A tour of Mississippi: The Mississippi Sound
Color your way through Mississippi with me! Click below to download a coloring sheet of a shrimp boat on the Mississippi Sound.
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Despite FDA warnings, Mississippi lawmaker pushes hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 treatment
Julien Behal, PA Wire
Drugs in a pharmacy.
An elected official is urging his constituents to sign a petition asking the governor to allow for the use of a controversial drug as a treatment for the coronavirus.
State Rep. Dana Criswell’s petition drive to get Gov. Tate Reeves to sign an order allowing the use of the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 is unnecessary because there is nothing preventing the drug from being used in Mississippi.
“Most independent (pharmacists) are filling the hydroxychloroquine prescriptions now,” said Susan McCoy, executive director of the state Board of Pharmacists. “I have not had any calls reporting they are not. Some chains are not. That is a corporate decision.”
A spokesperson for the state Medical Licensure Board said it also is not prohibiting Mississippi doctors from writing prescriptions for hydroxychloroquine as long as the prescription can be justified — just like with any other drug.
It is not clear whether Reeves would have the authority to override existing laws – even in an emergency situation – to provide such an order. But apparently existing law currently does not prevent the drug from being prescribed.
Since April, McCoy said the web site for the Board of Pharmacy has simply said that “pharmacists should exercise caution dispensing these drugs in a community setting.” She added, in reality, the same rule should apply to all drugs.
“We have it on one web page,” she said. “I do not know if (Criswell) did not read it.”
The drug, which for years has been prescribed for lupus, other arthritis ailments and as a preventive for malaria, became controversial when President Donald Trump wholeheartedly endorsed it to treat the coronavirus. He even said he was taking it as a preventive at one point.
Based at least in part on Trump’s endorsement, the effectiveness of the drug has become a political issue.
Mississippi House
Rep. Dana Criswell, R-Olive Branch
“This treatment must be made available to the people of our state,” Criswell, the Olive Branch Republican, said. “Conservative Republicans have long demanded that government should not get between doctors and their patients. We hold the belief that government officials and bureaucrats should get out of the way and allow patient the “right to try” even experimental treatments.”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has rescinded its own emergency order approving the drug as a treatment for COVID-19. It has also cautioned against the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat patients with COVID-19 because of numerous safety issues, “including blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure.” But, McCoy said, the FDA change does not mean the drug cannot be prescribed by physicians “off label,” for COVID-19.
The confusion, she said, is that some states have laws preventing their pharmacists from prescribing drugs off label. Mississippi does not, meaning it can be prescribed for a disease other than what it is approved for by the FDA. She said some chain drug stores prohibit their pharmacists from filling off label prescriptions.
“The jury is still out on this drug” as a treatment for the coronavirus, McCoy said. “What people don’t understand is that things change day to day. As things change, pharmacists still have to keep up with that.”
She said pharmacists should ensure the prescription is written to treat an individual patient, such as for a five to seven day regiment, and not for a prolonged period of time where it appeared the prescription was written to stockpile the drug. She added that the pharmacist should have a strong indication that the person receiving the prescription is being closely monitored by a physician.
Some studies have indicated that the drug can provide cardiac issues for some patients.
In his letter, Criswell said: “Please follow the lead of our president and bravely withstand the pressure of media and liberal politicians who prefer to see citizens die to gain political power. We beg you, stand for the people of Mississippi.”
In recent days the president has retweeted claims of the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine made by Houston, Texas, doctor Stella Immanuel who also has claimed, among other things, that certain medical problems are caused by people having sex in their dreams with witches and demons and that scientists are developing an anti-religion vaccine, according to a report by the Daily Beast.
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Marshall Ramsey: This Is Fine
Darned if you do, darned if you don’t. Sure, it is good for kids to be in school — socially and academically. And working parents don’t want their kids left home alone. HOWEVER, we just happen to be in the middle of a huge spike of cases with widespread community spread of the disease (which will be made worse by the kids being in school.) You also have to be concerned about staff members who are at risk from the virus. So should Mississippi go ahead and start schools now or wait like some districts have done? I guess we will find out.
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