Good News: State sees reduction in cases but State Health Officer says now is not the time to cut back efforts

As of August 11th, it’s been five months since Mississippi started seeing its first cases of COVID-19. For the first time in weeks, there is some encouraging news.

“Two weeks ago, we saw 1,342 new cases,” said Governor Tate Reeeves. “Today, we had less than half of that. That’s good. It shows we are beginning to turn the corner.”

However, according to State Health Officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, now is not the time to slack off on efforts to slow down the spread of the virus. In fact, he suggests we double-down our efforts even.

“We need to have the long view,” said Dobbs. “This isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In the summertime,people were ready to throw off the restrictions and go back to normal or even more than normal in some cases. And we paid the price for it.”

Mississippians are strongly encouraged to continue following safety guidelines to keep the state on a continued downward slope in emerging new cases.