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“[F]ar too many people have not taken this deadly virus seriously.”
TALK JXN
@JXNFREEPRESS
@JACKSONFREEPRESS
— Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba while mandating that Jacksonians wear masks, June 30, 2020
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ce eren rev
COVID-19 In Mississippi: Lacking Leadership, Buy-In or Both? by Nick Judin
July 8 - 21, 2020 • jfp.ms
6
SHELTER IN PLACE
NUMBER OF TESTS
70,000
SAFER AT HOME
April 3 - April 27
April 27 - June 1
SAFE RETURN June 1 - Present
14
60,000
12
50,000
10
40,000
8
30,000
6
20,000
4
10,000
2
0
PERCENT TESTS POSITIVE - ONLY APPLIES TO BLACK LINE
J
ackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba stood in the gardens outside City Hall in early-summer oppressive heat with a simple message. “I will play the bad guy,” he warned. “I will be the one that people are upset with.” It was June 30, 10 days into summer and five days after the Mississippi State Department of Health reported 1,092 new cases of coronavirus disease in a single day. It was also during a span of time in Jackson when state legislators, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, were likely contracting the virus during the extended legislative session amid long meetings and ceremonies with limited social distancing and mask-wearing to retire the Mississippi state flag and complete 2020 legislation. The week to come would leave Mississippi with the highest per-capita increase of the coronavirus in the nation, NPR’s analytics now show. The mayor, flanked by health-care professionals from across Jackson, announced a mandatory mask order on June 30—a tentative, moderated attempt at real enforcement with one of the internationally recognized solutions to the problem of COVID-19. Cognizant of the ideological rage such a mandate would draw, Lumumba pleaded with the public. “If you disagree with my politics, if you disagree with any stance of anyone who’s telling you to wear a mask—by all means, wear a mask and live to disagree with me another day,” Lumumba said. The grand debate over a protective mask, played out on social media from the local level to the halls of the White House itself, is representative of the state of the pandemic in America. Soaring unemployment has left most states unwilling to consider the kinds of broad shutdowns that followed the virus’ initial scouring of the nation to help flatten the curve. But now, as COVID-19 has spiked in Mississippi and across the nation, and without an abatement many wrongly thought the summer heat would bring, even non-
0 April 4 - 18
April 19 - May 2
May 3 - 16
May 17 - 30
June 1 - 13
June 14 - 27
Mississippi - Testing Volumes and Positives April - June 2020 Total test volume
Positive tests
Percent Positive SOURCE: MSDH
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs points to a rising positive test percentage as a key indicator that COVID-19 is getting worse in Mississippi. On July 7, he said Mississippi needs a mask mandate, whether local or statewide.
restrictive actions like face coverings have morphed into the realm of the political. “Mask-wearing has become a totem, a secular religious symbol,” Republican strategist Alex Castellanos told The Washington Post on June 30. “Christians wear crosses, Muslims wear a hijab, and members of the Church of Secular Science bow to the Gods of Data by wearing a mask as their symbol, demonstrating that they are the elite; smarter, more rational, and morally superior to everyone else.” His words reflect the vitriol over maskwearing that have erupted in public spaces, town halls and social media across the nation. “That actually goes to the very top— to the president of the United States,”
Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton said in an interview with the Jackson Free Press. “He’s politicized COVID-19. He’s not engaged in rational or consistent leadership. … The White House put out guidelines for responding to COVID-19. ... They were really on point. Somebody did a great job writing them. And then you see the president himself go on TV and ask people not to follow those guidelines.” A Lack of ‘Buy-in’ What is not a matter of public debate, however, is that the COVID-19 crisis is worsening in Mississippi, from a spate of newly infected legislators to sharp spikes in those contracting the virus across the
state. This is a sobering increase that came since Gov. Tate Reeves almost completely reopened the state, down to tattoo shops, and allowed crowds of up to 50 to gather outside without social distancing. In general, state guidelines suggest 6-feet distancing and masks rather than mandating them. In recent weeks, every single metric intended to warn of increased COVID-19 spread has peaked, and then peaked again. New cases, long “plateaued” at between 300 to 400 daily cases, spiked to over 1,000, then settled around more than 600 a day. Four of the last seven days have shown an increase closer to 900 a day. COVID-19 hospitalizations climbed to numbers never before seen, accom-
