Tommy Stevens’ next football will be with the Saints.
The NFL Draft was rocking along, nearing its end, and then, rolling across the bottom of our TV screens, came this bolt out of the blue: The New Orleans Saints, with pick No. 240 in the seventh round, take Mississippi State quarterback Tommy Stevens.
Rick Cleveland
Say what?
And while the Saints’ pick of Stevens may have shocked most of the football universe, at least one person wasn’t surprised: Joe Moorhead.
Moorhead, who coached Stevens at both Penn State and Mississippi State, remains bullish on Stevens. “Good things happen to good people,” Moorhead said. “Tommy Stevens is a great person.”
Nevertheless, the pick raised eyebrows around the NFL – and in Mississippi. The Saints traded a sixth round choice in the 2021 draft to get Stevens in the seventh round of 2020. What’s more, they drafted a quarterback who started nine games in five years of college football – all those in his fifth year as a grad transfer at Mississippi State.
Rogelio V. Solis/AP photo
Joe Moorhead remains bullish on Tommy Stevens.
“I knew there was pretty good interest in Tommy,” Moorhead said. “A couple teams called me about him and I knew, from talking to Tommy, that the Saints were high on him. So, no, it was not that big of a surprise.
“We’re talking about a 6-foot-4, 235-pounder who runs in the mid-to-high 4.5’s and is really, really athletic,” Moorhead continued. “You’re talking about a really tough guy who has battled through injuries, a really good team guy who his teammates really appreciate. I mean, good gosh, he was only in Starkville for a short time before his teammates voted him team captain.”
Still, you’ve got a guy like Shea Patterson, a former five-star quarterback recruit who was a full-time starter at both Ole Miss and Michigan, who was not drafted. And you’ve got the Saints trading a future higher pick for the right to draft Stevens, a former three-star recruit.
If you know anything about Saints coach Sean Payton, who will kick onsides to begin the second half in a Super Bowl, you know there is most often a method to his madness. No doubt, he sees a whole lot of jack-of-all-trades Taysom Hill in Stevens.
So does Moorhead.
“At Penn State, we used a two-quarterback system and we created hybrid position that lined Tommy up at running back, tight end and wide receiver besides,” Moorhead said. “We wanted to get him on the field because he can help you in so many ways. He could have played special teams, too. He could have been the wedge-buster on kickoff coverage. That’s how big, strong and fast he is.”
Sounds an awful lot like Hill, whom the Saints have used like a Swiss army knife – lining up all over the field on offense and also on special teams.
Hill, who played college ball at BYU, is listed at 6-2 and 221 and has run a 4.51 40. Stevens is two inches taller, weighs more and is nearly as fast. Hill completed 58.2 percent of his passes at BYU. Stevens completed 59.9 percent of his passes at Penn State and Mississippi State.
Tommy Stevens
Said Payton of Stevens, “He’s athletic enough to play in the kicking game, he’s certainly someone that we feel like catches the ball exceptionally well, and he’s someone that I think is in a developmental role more as a quarterback. But we saw him do a number of things.”
Payton said the Saints would have preferred to sign Stevens as an undrafted free agent but knew there was high interest from other teams and that Stevens might be leaning in another direction.
Clearly, the Saints saw immediate value in Stevens or they would not have pulled the trigger.
Moorhead sees the same and points to the 2017 Maryland-Penn State game in which Stevens threw for one touchdown, ran for three more (out of three different positions) and also caught a pass.
“I know Tommy believes he has a long-term future as an NFL quarterback, and he has that ability,” Moorhead said. “But he has the physical tools that you can plug in to a system in a number of ways.
“I am happy for him. He deserves it. Only 255 players in all of college football get picked,” Moorhead continued. “When you think of it that way, that’s pretty elite.”
•••
Because of the coronavirus pandemic Moorhead, now the offensive coordinator at Oregon, still lives in Starkville and has yet to move his family.
“It’s just a surreal time,” said Moorhead, who had participated in four spring practices at Oregon before all college athletics were curtailed there and across the nation.
Moorhead said he and his family are making the best of the situation. Earlier this month, the Starkville Police Department, via Twitter, sent out a thank-you to Moorhead for providing a pizza lunch for the entire force.
Join us every day as we enjoy some great music from local musicians!
Good evening from Tupelo, MS!
Thanks for joining me!
Glad to be here and grateful for the opportunity to share some songs with you.
Thanks to the Mayor’s office for hosting 30 days of local musicians! Enjoy!
Good evening from Tupelo, MS!Thanks for joining me!Glad to be here and grateful for the opportunity to share some songs with you.Thanks to the Mayor’s office for hosting 30 days of local musicians! Enjoy!
2020 has been quite the season, hasn’t it? We are all a little lost. We are all, even if we don’t want to admit it, somewhat afraid. We are all tired of being quarantined. We are all concerned about our family, friends, our country, and our world. We are all having to make serious adjustments in our lives. We want our lives back. And we are all, in this season together. Sounds bleak, doesn’t it? Well, here in the midst of the storm, I am here to tell you, I believe this tragic time will soon come to an end and bring with it triumph.
It’s hard to see how anything resembling a victory will come of this situation, isn’t it? After all, thousands of people are sick, or have passed away due to this virus. Many more are at risk of getting sick. We do not have a cure; we do not have enough medical staff or safety equipment for those who care for us or our loved ones. Some people have lost their jobs. The list of dread seems endless. But I am telling you, a ‘glory day’ is coming. And if you look closely, you can already see tinges of this change. All you have to do is look.
Have you noticed the difference in social media? Boy, I have! I used to cringe when I scrolled my page and saw all of the political posts. There were so many! But now, my feed is filled with positivity, humor, and thankfully, with things of God. The nastiness and negativity of politics has been replaced with daily scriptures, and videos and devotionals from many sources. I have even seen some of my past students lead daily devotions and let me tell you, it makes my heart rejoice. I also see photos of past students and friends who serve in the battlefields of the medical community, the military, and law enforcement. To those, I am so grateful and so proud of you. Know that I pray for your safety each and every day. You are appreciated. You are greatly loved. When I see your sweet faces on Facebook or Instagram, I smile. I am so blessed by you, your sacrifices, and gifts you so freely give us all. Thank you for all that you do.
I see videos made by teachers and principals that show how much they miss their students; movie clips made with so much love and care. These ‘love notes’ reassure the children that they teachers are still present in their lives. They are notes of promise that every little thing and every big thing, is going to turn out fine. Teachers, though they may not inside the classroom, are still working, still teaching, still loving.
I also watch daily, videos made by parents. Some of these clips make me laugh, others make me cry, and some make me laugh so hard, I cry. Parents now understand FULLY everything teachers do for their children. Parents are appreciating teachers like never before. Teachers, you are heroes. Teachers, you are saints. Teachers, you are now among the most loved individuals on the planet. Your struggle is real, and is now felt by the multitudes. You rock harder than Jerry Lee Lewis playing a piano engulfed in flames. Thank you for your love and service.
Yes, social media has indeed changed in the last few months; for the better. And it is my fervent prayer that it will keep changing long after this quarantine is a thing of the past. Let us not forget. Let us always be grateful, and let us always show and share it.
I hope everyone reading this post knows God on a personal level. I pray you are a Christian. I could not fathom what I would do if I did not have a relationship with God. How would I have made it through the many snares in my life? Very plainly, I would not have made it. Who could know exactly what my situation was and how it would come out? Nobody but God. Who could grant my heart perfect peace in the middle of the many dark times I have faced? God, that’s Who. Who is going to take this villainous virus and everything associated with it, and turn it in to something good? Yep. God is.
I have heard a few people ask why a loving God would strike us with this plague. Well, I don’t believe He ‘struck’ us with it. I believe He ‘stopped’ us with it. Yep. Stopped us in our tracks. Think about it. What was our world like a few months ago? What were people doing, or not doing? Seriously. Look back. Think. Remember. Do you remember? I do. And let me tell you, this world, myself included, had drifted away from God. The closeness to Him was replaced by the need for more money, for ‘things’, and for our own ‘wants’ and ‘desires’. This ‘wanting’ made us slip further away in our relationships with our family and friends. We seemed to care a great deal about what money could buy, and less about what it could not. At least that’s my take on things. I believe we all needed a ‘time out’. What do you think?
Remember the words to Psalm 23? Pay close attention to the words in the second line:
“The Lord is my Shepard, He MAKETH me to lie down in green pastures…”
It doesn’t say, “He suggests I lie down, it says, “He MAKETH me to lie down.”
I never thought about the word, “maketh” until recently. And after thinking carefully about it, it makes perfect sense. God is our Father. And a good Father takes care of His children. Did you ever have to ‘maketh’ your child take a nap? Of course, you did! Why? Because the child needed REST. Because it was good and necessary for their well-being. Same with God. Sometimes He has to ‘maketh’ His children stop, rest, and reflect. I believe He has done just that with the Coronavirus.
Though I am more than ready to get back to parts of my previous life, such as being with my family again, other portions of it will be left behind. My hurried lifestyle, my lack of extreme closeness to God, and my low level of patience will be dropped at the door. This period of change and rest has given me a fresh set of eyes and a new vision for my life, one that I am anxious to experience. You see, God does not relish in our sufferings, He delights in our developments! And as for me, during this time at home, I have ‘developed’ a new closeness to Him.
Yes, this season we are suffering through has not been easy, and may continue to be difficult in the coming months. Yes, there will be obstacles. Yes, there will be sorrow. Yes, there will be tears, but take heart. It’s going to be okay, and I am sure of that. What makes me so certain? The Bible does! Do you remember the Bible story of Joseph? His own brothers cast him into a well and then sold him into slavery. What a dark situation Joseph faced. But God used all of his trials for good. In fact, he ended up saving his people. Had things not transpired the way they did, his people would have surely starved to death.
And do you remember the story about Jesus and the grave? As tragic as this time was for Jesus, it turned out to be the most wonderful for His followers. The ugly and gut-wrenching part of this story is when they beat Him, spit on Him, cursed Him, and then hung Him on a cross to die. But…the greatest part of this story is that He rose again, and because of Him and His mercy and grace, those who believe in Him will spend eternity in Heaven! It just doesn’t get any better than that.
I challenge you to pull out your Bibles and read carefully the stories inside. So many disasters were recorded. Major misfortunes and heartbreaks are found throughout its pages. But, read again how the stories end. Every one of them, for those who followed God, ended in His glory. Yes, the people suffered. Some died. Many were imprisoned. But, in every one of these situations faced, God made it all good. And I KNOW that when this story we are living through comes to the final chapter, God will give us a happy ending too. How do I know this? Because the Bible tells me so!
My closing thoughts are not ones of sadness, but ones of hope. I believe God, the good Father, teaches all of His children lessons to make their lives better and to further His kingdom. I believe that through all of this, God is going to bring us together like we have never before seen. I truly believe we are positioned to see one of the greatest miracles of all-time. I believe God, in His infinite power and wisdom, may not change this situation as quickly as we would like, but I do believe He will change each of us. And in doing that, He will indeed, change the world. I believe, and I hope you do too.
Wear your masks and wash your hands.
Stay home as much as you can.
Keep the faith.
Pray.
Help others.
Love y’all.
“He shall cover me with His feathers, and under His wings I shall seek refuge.” – Psalm 91:4
I am finding myself becoming short tempered the longer this quarantine lasts. It’s not that I want to go anywhere – I am perfectly fine staying home. I think I miss all the fussing and griping on social media. The negative posts where someone didn’t get enough French fries on their plate. The posts condemning the school about not letting out over the threat of a sprinkle. There is only so much religious and political debates I can stand to read. I’ve about had my limit with those, and it is obviously taking a toll on my sociability.
I do think we are only about a week or so away from some parent of a senior going off on facebook about a rule concerning graduation. Tupelo’s graduation has always been some source of controversy concerning how they conduct the Pomp and Circumstance – or “pomp-less” circumstances. I remember when they started prohibiting anyone from clapping during the part where the student’s names were being called. It seems like I heard about that for a while. IF they even decide to have a graduation ceremony can you imagine the rules surrounding it? I would imagine we will need to produce a complete CBC, temperature check, and prove we have taken a round of antibiotics in order to reserve a seat.
Luckily for me, my senior doesn’t go to Tupelo. However, I still imagine that his school will figure out a way to remove the pomp as well as the circumstance. Now, don’t forget how this podcast started – I am in a weird mood lately and most of what you are about to hear, while it may be funny, it may take on a dark funny. I was smiling when I said that, by the way. I feel that while there doesn’t seem to be so much negative posts on Facebook lately – I would help out the situation and belly ache for a few minutes for your listening entertainment. However, before we cut from the intro to the next part – I want to use some reverse psychology on you. Now, I don’t want you sharing this podcast with any of your friends. I don’t want you sending me messages. I feel like if tell you not to do those things you will break your thumb hitting the share button and typing me a message. I don’t want to be responsible for that.
Part 1
I feel like any day now I am going to get a message that reads: The commencement ceremony for graduation is as follows:
1. You are not allowed to invite anyone except your immediate family. All of you who have stepparents will need to explain to them that only those involved in your birth are allowed in the building.
2. Your parents will be sequestered to an isolation booth where they will undergo disinfecting prior to you being called to receive your diploma. Please wear clothes that don’t easily stain because we can’t be responsible for any damages.
3. If you do not have a mask and gloves you will need to report to the school nurse for proper cross-contamination training and receive your PPE.
4. We will need for you to sign a waiver allowing us to broadcast your image via social media live feed and realize that due to the extreme pull on bandwidth we may need for you to walk slowly and hold your pose with the principal until we are certain your image isn’t distorted or pixelated.
5. Do not be alarmed by the HazMat team on site in case someone sneezes .
6. We will provide everyone with the ZOOM notification to watch the Valedictorian, Salutatorian, and Historian give their commencement speeches.
7. We will have social distancing monitors throughout the facility making sure that no one makes pictures without using landscape mode on their phones (that’s sideways – not up and down). Also, absolutely no cheek to cheek pictures with duck lips. We have instructed the Sheriff’s office to taze you and take you to jail if this is attempted. (Honestly, this would be great law to implement whether or not there is a pandemic.)
8. Do not, under any circumstances, congregate together and throw your hats into the air.
9. Any parent caught crying will be treated as a biological threat. Make sure you get it together now. Refer to number 5 above if you have any questions about the outcome of this.
10. There will be no clapping – we felt this was necessary to have some sort of normalcy to our new rules.
The one and only time I ventured away from home without my wife I was asked to go to the store for a few items. I did not enjoy having to do this. I felt like the kid in the winter that has so many coats on he can’t bend at the waist. I was told to wear my mask. I was told to wear my gloves. I was told to make sure I stayed at least 6 feet away from someone. Again, I didn’t want to do this. It’s not that I am afraid of catching anything. That is the least of my worries – I have gotten used to being at home and don’t want to go anywhere. I have absolutely enjoyed the shelter in place. However, the honey-do wasn’t going to do itself.
I arrived at the store. First, I couldn’t figure out the mask. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to tie the top strings over my ears or crisscross them in back. I just know that when I did tie them, they came loose. My left thumb when right through the glove as I was putting it on. I didn’t want to call my wife and tell her how silly I felt – because the only way I could get that silly mask to stay up was to twist it around the arms of my glasses then tie it in knot. I had to only use one hand because, like I said, my other glove was destroyed before I ever got out of the truck. There I am pushing the buggy with one hand – mostly trying to keep from going into circles. I figured it would be easier to pull the blasted thing since one of the wheels kept locking to the side. I was in the cooler section where the milk and eggs are and I was looking for a particular brand of milk that always get. There was a lady approaching my space and that made me nervous. I could barely understand her because her mask was too tight and she had one of those plastic shields attached to it. It almost looked like one that surgeons use. She was having a tough time because instead of surgical gloves it looked like she was wearing dishwashing gloves with a pair of those food service gloves over them. It looked as if it was extremely difficult hold anything.
I could hear her mumbling and I said, excuse me? She was complaining about having to wear all the garb (as she called it) and she had picked up some air freshener for her home and couldn’t open it and smell it. I mentioned that the names on the boxes were pretty close to accurate, but she was certain that without smelling it before she bought it wasn’t going to end well at home. Apparently, her husband has sensitive sinuses and if she changed scents it could cause him to have headaches. I about to tell her that I completely agree that it could because I have the same issues. Before I could say anything, she said it’s all in his head and she’d never heard of anything like that. She said he just doesn’t know what good smell is because he’s a man. So I said, well I can relate to being a man. She was manhandling one of those air fresheners trying to at least get to where she could try to smell it. She was putting the bottle down into the top of her mask and manipulating the part covering her nose to try and get sniffle. I had my milk so I was walking away and told her good luck.
About the time I turn to walk away I hear her sneeze. Like a scream and a sneeze and then another scream of OH MY GOD! I turned around and the inside of her mask was completely covered in spit and mucus. She was instantly blinded by her own snot. I assume by the upward direction of the spray that she managed to get her mask below her nose. One of the store employees heard the scream and had made his way over to where the commotion was. He had brought a mop and bucket and I’m still not sure why. He apparently had been in this situation before and knew how to cut corners. This poor lady is walking in circles begging for help and nobody was willing to get close enough to her. I thought about taking out my phone and recording it but I didn’t want to be that guy. She was screaming, “what am I gonna do? How am I gonna get home?” I was thinking that maybe when she got to the car she would think to pull off the mask. Well, she managed to pull off her mask and one of the employees had brought her a new one.
They treated the area like a chemical spill and I was impressed by that – and then someone said, “I saw on the news that the spray from a sneeze like that can travel 15 feet! That’s when folks started adjusting their masks and walking slowly away from her. The employee asked her if the items in her buggy was all she was getting and would help get them bagged so she could leave. I was standing far enough away but close enough they could hear me. I said, “ma’am if I were your I wouldn’t buy whatever fragrance that was that caused the explosion. I mean, it’s none of my business, but if it made you sneeze can you imagine what it’s going to do to your husband.”
That settles it – I’m never going back to the store – or anywhere else. I am going to remain home for the rest of year. I’ll see ya’ll in 2021.
Click on the above links or scroll down to view our interactive charts describing the trends around the coronavirus in Mississippi.
Cases by county
Daily new cases over time
The total count of cumulative cases will never decrease unless the disease is eradicated — that’s not a likely scenario, nor used by experts to gauge disease spread. But, multiple daily counts can indicate when the curve is “flattening,” signaling that all cases are plateauing. Since cases began to grow exponentially in the U.S., the public health goal has largely revolved around mitigating spread and preparing for potential patient surge by bulking up the health care system. In theory, if the former — reducing spread through social distancing — succeeds, the latter — overtaxing the healthcare system — becomes less of a threat. Essentially, if public health strategies work, worst-case-scenario preparations become less necessary.
Total tests over time
Both the number of new and all cases are a function of testing — the more tests completed, the more cases are identified, traced and, ideally, isolated. Mississippi has been and continues to be ahead of the national curve for testing, according to nationwide data aggregated by The COVID Tracking Project. Daily analysis puts Mississippi around between 12th and 15th most total tests per capita in the nation. But daily tests, according to the data available from the health department, have begun to decline. Averaged over the last two weeks the daily test count has decreased slightly in the last few days. A new Harvard study suggests states should reach 152 daily tests per 100,000 people to have a safe barometer of statewide COVID identification. Over the last full week of April, Mississippi averaged about 2,000 tests per day, or 71 per 100,000. On April 27, the health department loosened testing guidelines for state-sponsored testing pop-ups, aiming to increase testing coverage for those who’ve been exposed to the virus or are showing light symptoms, no longer exclusive to those with fevers.
Age, race and gender of confirmed cases
Dates of illness onset
Illness onset refers to the date when a patient with a confirmed case actually started getting sick. The metric can offer a better trend gauge than number of new cases due to reporting delay, but has its own shortcomings because most, but not all, known cases are reported.
Up until the last full week in April, the number of COVID illnesses starting on any given day peaked on April 6 with 174 people reported first having symptoms. Since then, the peak has moved toward the tail of the graph, meaning more recent, and jumped higher — in addition to clustering with other high points. As of the last weekend in April, for the first time, this chart shows most cases ever in the past few days, on April 20 at 214, and the two next highest points in the last two weeks as well — a departure from previous trends. Both single day reports and averaging the number of illnesses weekly show variability without a steady downward trend.
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today, Report For America
Delbert Hosemann during the opening day of the legislative session in the Mississippi House chambers at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, January, 2020.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said he hopes it is “business as usual as much as possible” when the Legislature returns on May 18 from its coronavirus-induced recess.
Both Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, and House Speaker Philip Gunn announced the return date in simultaneous news releases Monday.
As the releases were sent out, Hosemann, in his first year as lieutenant governor, was speaking during a virtual meeting of the Mississippi State University Stennis Institute of Government/capitol press corps. He said the plans are to take up most of the legislation that was pending when the recess occurred in mid-March and then take up the overall state budget in June.
Hosemann also said he hopes to pass a teacher pay raise when the session resumes as well as increase funding for early childhood education.
Referring to the teacher pay raise and early childhood education, he said, “The things we need to do are generational. Hopefully this pandemic is temporary.”
Early in session, the Senate passed essentially a $1,000 per year pay raise that will cost about $75 million annually. It is pending before the House.
“I believe we passed a bill and we need to go forward with it,” Hosemann said.
While Hosemann stressed the importance of passing the pay raise, he also conceded that passing an overall state budget for the coming fiscal year, beginning July 1, might be difficult. State revenue collections are expected to drop significantly during the coming months because of the dramatic economic slowdown associated with COVID-19. He said he and Gunn had been in communications with state agency heads asking them to look for ways to save funds during the final months of the current fiscal year to help alleviate some of the demands on the upcoming budget year.
While Hosemann said the plans are to resume the session where it ended in early March with business as usual, he conceded that some bills that normally would have passed might be sacrificed because of the focus that the Legislature might need to place on the pandemic.
For instance, he said leaders are exploring the possibility of purchasing for emergency situations a supply of medical masks, gowns and other items that have been in short supply at times during efforts to combat the pandemic.
And, he said there will be a focus on voting that was not present before the recess. He said laws might need to be amended to ensure the safety of people going to polls to vote if the coronavirus is still a factor during the general election in November.
“We need to pray it does not come back but prepare in case it does,” he said.
Hosemann said Senate Elections Chair Jennifer Branning, R-Philadelphia, and Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, have been looking at elections laws. Blount has a background in voting issues. Hosemann did not commit as to what changes might need to be made, but said everything from expanding early voting in case of emergencies to providing more protection at the polls will be considered.
“We want every (eligible person) to vote and we want them to be in a safe environment to do that,” he said.
Mississippi is one of a handful of states (less than 10) that do not have “no excuse” early voting or have not taken up measures to help ensure the safety of voters in November
Hosemann said consideration also is being given to what safety measures will need to be in place in the Mississippi Capitol when the session resumes. Hosemann said the press will be allowed in the building to cover the session, but indicated that access might be limited to some groups to deal with the need to continue social distancing.
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.
Deborah Birx, the White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator, listened during a phone call Friday morning as Mississippi Health Officer Thomas Dobbs walked her through the details he and Gov. Tate Reeves planned to announce later that day that would relax parts of Mississippi’s previous statewide shelter-in-place order.
Birx, who has been in close contact with Mississippi officials, expressed support for the plan and optimism about the state’s pandemic outlook, according to a source with direct knowledge of the call.
A few hours later, as hundreds of thousands of Mississippians watched and listened live, Reeves announced he would allow most retail businesses in the state to reopen, but not close-contact establishments such as hair and nail salons, barbershops, spas, gyms, casinos and entertainment venues.
“This weighs very, very heavily on me,” Reeves told Mississippi Today in a phone interview on Thursday, the day before he announced his new order. “We’re doing this methodically and cautiously. Obviously the health and safety of Mississippians is my top priority, but part of that conversation has to be about whether to reopen the economy. It’s a difficult balance to strike.”
In the days leading up to the Friday announcement, government officials across the state had considered it to be an inflection point in the state’s response to the pandemic. State agency heads and even administrators at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the largest medical center in the state, prepared for the governor to completely reverse his previous decision to order many Mississippians to stay at home.
Reeves, Dobbs and several people close to the two officials spoke several times last week with Mississippi Today to provide insight into the deliberations that would culminate in Reeves’ Friday announcement. The governor’s chief consideration last week: weighing the state’s health data and newly issued reopening guidance from the White House versus the political and economic effects of relaxing or extending his earlier shelter-in-place order.
The state’s COVID-19 data available to Reeves and Dobbs on Friday morning, paired with the White House’s guidance on how states should start to reopen, showed it was too soon to fully roll back shelter-in-place restrictions. Mississippi Today analyzed the data available to the two officials on Friday shortly before they announced the decision.
Cases will never flatten or decrease until the disease is eradicated. But metrics such as the number of new cases, when folks become ill and total tests completed, when analyzed both daily and weekly, paint a picture of the state’s progress in flattening or plateauing the curve of cases.
Before moving to lift shelter-in-place orders and reopening state economies, the White House guidelines issued April 16 generally suggest that states should see three things over a two-week period before beginning to roll back shelter-in-place orders:
• Flu- and COVID-like symptoms should trend down.
• Number of new daily cases should decrease or represent a smaller proportion of all tests, while test volume increases or flattens.
• Hospitals are able to treat patients without crisis care, while also ensuring health care workers can access tests.
By Friday, Mississippi had not met the first two White House thresholds. And while total tests run have consistently increased and continue to outpace most other states per capita, the average daily tests run and weekly total tests have started to decline. As of Friday, looking back a week, total weekly new cases grew by 25 percent and total weekly tests decreased by 27 percent.
Tracking new and total cases is dependent upon testing — the more tests completed, the more cases are identified, traced and, ideally, isolated. Last week saw the most and second-most new cases ever last week, at 300 and 281, though officials have reiterated that testing delays and reporting lags — even when operating efficiently — can lead to varied peaks and valleys in new cases reported any given day.
As for the health care system’s capacity, Mississippi officials have said the state successfully thwarted capacity issues and avoided extreme projections, meaning Mississippi’s data satisfied the third White House guideline. However, while intensive care unit and ventilator usage remain relatively stable, the number of patients hospitalized with confirmed and suspected COVID-19 is still growing.
By most metrics, Mississippi’s new cases have not leveled or declined – and appear to still be climbing. Over the last two weeks, chronological new cases over a rolling seven-day period averaged 159 daily cases two weeks ago, 189 daily cases one week ago, and 234 daily cases Friday. (Averaged daily cases over a week reached a new peak over the weekend at 249 new cases Saturday.)
The burden of cases and deaths is disproportionately carried by African Americans. As of Friday, black Mississippians comprised 53 percent of cases and 61 percent of deaths despite accounting for less than 40 percent of the state’s populations. Limited data suggest this is echoed nationally.
Though the state’s COVID-19 data failed to satisfy all the White House guidelines, political pressure to reopen the state crescendoed last week as Reeves was weighing his decision.
Last week, Republican governors in other Southern states ignored those guidelines and loosely reversed their previous shelter-in-place restrictions. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican whom Reeves has contacted regularly in recent days, received sharp criticism from both sides of the political aisle — including from President Donald Trump — after drastically reversing his previous shelter-in-place order.
When asked last week if Trump’s suggestions were playing a role in his decision-making, Reeves replied: “What (Trump) has said to me is to open up Mississippi as soon as it’s safe to do so.”
As the influence of national and regional politics crept into the state, Reeves and his political advisers were also strapped with the reality that the central pillars of his successful 2019 gubernatorial campaign — a steady state economy and positive trends in public education — are breaking down.
After Reeves had issued stay at home restrictions and the virus continues to spread, small businesses across the state are struggling to survive or are closing outright, and unemployment filings are at a record high. Public education advocates fear the state’s testing gains will be erased as schools have been closed since spring break and many students and districts have inconsistent access to virtual learning options.
Voters like Jessica Cobb, a self-described conservative Republican in Gulfport who said she voted for Reeves last year, have lost faith in the governor’s ability to lead.
“I know people who are hurting and wondering where their next meal is going to come from,” Cobb, who is unemployed and looking for work, told Mississippi Today. “They’re not getting the help they were promised, they don’t qualify for unemployment because they were self-employed. This is just insanity. It’s people’s livelihoods at stake. This state is a working class state, these people are working class people. He needs to open the state.”
In a Thursday phone interview with Mississippi Today, Reeves acknowledged that small business owners are struggling and called his late March defining of essential businesses “a mistake.”
“Defining any business as essential or not doesn’t take into consideration that any business is essential for many Mississippians,” Reeves said. “So many people have invested everything they have into building their small businesses, and they’re looking at this as the moment when they could lose everything they’ve worked their entire lives for. Government cannot be the reason that happens, and I’m doing everything I can to make sure it doesn’t.”
Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs addresses media during a press conference at the State of Mississippi Woolfolk Building in Jackson, Miss.
But through the growing political pressures and criticisms from unemployed Mississippians and small business owners, Reeves has leaned into Dobbs as his closest adviser during the pandemic, several people close to the two leaders told Mississippi Today. Dobbs, an epidemiologist by training, is the head of the Mississippi State Department of Health, a state agency independent of the governor’s office. Dobbs reports to an appointed Board of Health, not Reeves.
Dobbs himself ratcheted up his cautionary rhetoric last week, conceding that it appears the curve is flattening but going out of his way to publicly use phrasing like “still very, very concerned about outbreaks in places where people are close together,” “big box stores are still pretty crowded, it makes me very nervous,” and “I’m not seeing a lot of people wearing masks in the community.”
“The governor has been very thoughtful,” Dobbs told Mississippi Today in a phone interview on Tuesday. “He’s got a lot to balance and I certainly don’t envy certain decisions he has to make. He is extremely attentive to the health implications of this.”
Response to Reeves’ decision has varied, with critics believing that even the slight relaxation of the shelter-in-place order is irresponsible, and proponents believing that the decision was appropriate and measured.
Reeves clarified on Friday that though his new order is statewide, it will not preclude local governments from implementing tighter restrictions on their residents. For instance, if a municipality wants to close restaurants, that option would be available.
“I respect Governor Reeves safer-at-home order, and I appreciate him reopening our state’s economy slowly versus wide open as I feel that is a safer approach to slow the spread of COVID-19 and prevent a relapse in the future,” said Greenwood Mayor Carolyn McAdams. “Leflore County’s numbers are not leveling off but climbing, which tells me we need more time to slow the spread even though strict measures have been put into place and enforced.”
Anna Wolfe and Bobby Harrison contributed to this report.
Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s interim editor-in-chief
Mississippi Today is pleased to announce Adam Ganucheau as interim editor-in-chief.
Ganucheau joined Mississippi Today pre-launch in 2016 as a politics and state government reporter and has advanced to a senior staff member in his four years with the company.
“Adam was hire number one when we began building the newsroom,” said Andy Lack, Mississippi Today founder. “I’m so impressed by the way Adam has built relationships both in the newsroom and around the state. He is a natural leader for the next wave of growth at Mississippi Today.”
Ganucheau, who closely covered the 2018 and 2019 statewide elections and hosts the state’s only weekly political podcast, earned his bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Mississippi. A native of Hazlehurst, Ganucheau has worked as a staff reporter for AL.com, The Birmingham News and The Clarion Ledger, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“I’m humbled to step into this role and lead Mississippi’s largest and most dynamic newsroom,” said Ganucheau. “As outlets across the South face tough challenges and the future of journalism is in question, Mississippi Today’s mission has never been more critical. Our staff will continue to cover and contextualize the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and hold Mississippi’s most powerful in check.”
Ganucheau is preceded by Ryan “R.L.” Nave who served nearly two years as editor-in-chief. Nave has accepted a leadership position with a partner newsroom and will assume his new role in May.
“I consider myself lucky for being part of Mississippi Today’s journey for the past four years,” said Nave. “I also consider myself lucky for getting to work with so many talented and dedicated journalists who came into the newsroom every day with a strong passion for our mission and for their state. Mississippi is better off because of Mississippi Today, and I am eager to support the newsroom into its next chapter.”
You have to wonder what Tate Reeves would have done if he had known what his first few months in office would be like.
