Miss. state health officer meets with city leaders

MERIDIAN, Miss. (WTOK) - State health officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs met with city officials and hospital leaders to discuss COVID-19 cases and the vaccine.

Dobbs says hospitals are full in a way the state has never seen before.

“At capacity or near capacity for a couple of weeks now. We don’t have beds,” Dr. Keith Everett with Anderson Regional pointed out.

With more than 2,000 new cases reported Thursday, Dobbs says the health care people normally have access to may not be available due to the overwhelmed health care system.

“It’s going to be bad,” Dobbs said. “We’re having to institute mandatory transfers and care plans to make sure people have access to care.”

The state expects to see a massive spike in COVID cases after the holidays. Dobbs encourages everyone to host small celebrations and maintain as much distancing as possible.

“The most critical piece about understanding the risk during the holiday season, is that most people who spread coronavirus don’t know they have it.” Dobbs said, “They’re not sick. They don’t know they have it. You might have it and you don’t know it. You might be that super spreader.”

Dobbs says every hospital in Mississippi will have doses of the vaccine next week.

After getting the vaccine, Dobbs says he expected to feel achy. Instead, he says he didn’t have any negative symptoms. In order to be fully covered, medical professionals suggest that people get two doses of the vaccine. Dobbs says he is looking forward to getting the vaccine again in three weeks.

Dobbs informed city leaders that he does not think annual vaccinations will be necessary because the vaccine is very effective.

City leaders play a vital role in slowly the spread of COVID cases.

Dr. Dobbs encourages city officials to lead by example. Mayor Bland says he plans to keep the mask mandate in place until the end of January.

“I see based on his communications to us today, that we have capacity issues all across the state in our hospitals.” Bland said, “When people have normal things, they have to go to the hospital for, there’s low availability of beds. Which creates a stress issue with the hospitals.” Bland says all the information from Dr. Dobbs is very important as he makes decisions locally from a governmental standpoint.