Mississippi urges ‘high-risk’ residents to avoid indoor mass gatherings as Delta variant spreads.
Medical workers dispensed vaccines at a pop-up clinic in rural Leland, Miss., in April. Only 33 percent of residents in the state are immunized.Credit...Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Mississippi health officials, in a stark reversal, announced new recommendations on Friday to combat the spread of the more contagious Delta variant, urging older and chronically sick residents to avoid crowded indoor spaces.
The highly contagious
Delta variant became the dominant variant in the United States this week, accounting for about 52 percent of infections. It is spreading just as states have lifted most, if not all, pandemic restrictions.
Studies suggest that
vaccines remain effective against the Delta variant but public health experts say it poses a serious threat to unvaccinated populations. Only 33 percent of Mississippi residents in the state are fully immunized, tied for last with Alabama.
“We have seen an entire takeover of the Delta variant for our transmission,” Dr. Thomas Dobbs, the state health officer, said Friday afternoon. The state is asking that:
- All residents over 65 years of age avoid all indoor mass gatherings (regardless of vaccination status).
- All residents with chronic underlying medical conditions avoid all indoor mass gatherings.
- All unvaccinated residents wear a mask when indoors in public settings.
- All residents 12 years of age and older receive a Covid-19 vaccination.
In addition to asking people to get vaccinated as soon as possible and to wear a mask in public until they do, the state is now asking vulnerable people to take extra precautions, Dr. Dobbs said.
“For the time being, if you’re in one of these high-risk groups, it is very wise for you to avoid indoor mass gatherings where we are going to see significant transmission,” Dr. Dobbs said.
Health officials said that they hope that the new guidelines will help slow the transmissions they’ve seen spreading out from church groups, summer school classes, enrichment programs and outbreaks in nursing homes.
“We’re going to remain vulnerable for a long time,” Dr. Dobbs said. “I don’t think we’re going to have some miraculous increase in a vaccination rate the next few weeks.”
Over the last week, the state has averaged about 250 cases per day, a 91 percent increase from the average two weeks ago, according to a New York Times database.
Hospitalizations have increased by 34 percent from two weeks ago.
No county has reached the mark of 50 percent of its residents fully vaccinated, and Smith County has the lowest vaccination rate, at 21 percent.
Dr. Paul Byers, the state epidemiologist, offered a grim forecast of increased cases and hospitalizations in the coming weeks. He said 95 percent of the cases identified in the last month and 90 percent of hospitalizations and deaths have been among unvaccinated people in Mississippi.
“It’s a disturbing and concerning trend that we’re seeing,” he said. “We’re certainly moving in the wrong direction.”
Earlier this week,
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Biden’s chief coronavirus advisor, said if he were in a place with vaccination rates as low as Biloxi, Miss., he would consider wearing a mask.
Dr. Fauci is fully vaccinated. But on Sunday in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said that in parts of the country with low levels of vaccination and rising coronavirus caseloads, he might “go the extra mile to be cautious enough to make sure that I get the extra added level of protection.”
—
Adeel Hassan
Tracking the Coronavirus ›
| United StatesAvg. on Jul. 9 | 14-day change |
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| New cases | 18,272 | +52% |
| New deaths | 224 | –28% |
| WorldAvg. on Jul. 9 | 14-day change |
|---|
| 424,866 | +15% |
| 7,869 | –5% |
U.S. vaccinations ›
At least
one dose
Fully
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Total pop.
18 and up
Global hot spots ›
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Other trackers: Choose your own places to track
Educators’ unions support the new federal recommendations for reopening schools.
A teacher spoke with a student at a school in Clarksdale, Miss., in February.Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times
The two largest U.S. unions representing educators expressed approval on Friday of
new federal guidelines calling for schools to fully reopen, while acknowledging that more challenges lay ahead with children under 12 not eligible for vaccination.
The
new recommendations, issued by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday, come after students, teachers and parents have endured a disruptive school year characterized by shifting guidance, school closures and hastily implemented remote learning plans to contain the coronavirus.
Education has been a flash point since the pandemic unfurled, when many
teachers and
families were
frightened of in-person schooling. But
remote learning has proved an
inadequate substitute for many parents and students, and virtually all major districts plan to reopen schools full time in the fall — though they still need to convince some hesitant parents to send their children back.
Miguel Cardona, the secretary of education, said in a statement on Friday that “our top priority is to ensure that our nation’s students can safely learn in-person in their schools and classrooms.”
The new C.D.C. guidance will help educators achieve that goal, union leaders said.
Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Alliance, the largest teachers’ union in the country, said the guidelines were an “important road map for reducing the risk of Covid-19 in schools” in a statement.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers who has already
pushed for schools to fully reopen this fall, said in her own statement that “the guidance confirms two truths: that students learn better in the classroom, and that vaccines remain our best bet to stop the spread of this virus.”
The
new recommendations call for vaccinating as many people as possible, mask-wearing for unvaccinated people in schools, three feet of social distancing between students and layering different preventive tactics.
“For educators across the country, this guidance sets a floor, not a ceiling; it builds on the evidence we have about Covid transmission and reminds us that we must remain committed to other mitigation strategies,” Ms. Weingarten said, adding that “we share the growing concern over the Delta variant, as well as the evolving science around Covid transmission in young people, all of which make it incumbent upon school districts to remain committed both to vaccinations, and to these safety protocols.”
Studies suggest that
vaccines remain effective against the Delta variant. As of Friday, 55.9 percent of those 12 and older across the country were fully vaccinated,
according to federal data.
The new guidelines also suggest that districts base their approaches on local conditions rather than broad prescriptions, an approach that Ms. Pringle applauded.
“It is important that we pay attention to the unique needs of all our schools and the communities they serve,” Ms. Pringle said. “We have a responsibility as a country to address the disproportionate burden suffered throughout this pandemic by communities of color, which has contributed to families being unable or reticent to have their children return to in-person instruction.”
Schools largely proved to be far safer during the pandemic than many had thought, and in general, serious illnesses and death among children have been rare. Young children are
also less likely to transmit the virus to others than teens and adults are.
Meisha Porter, the chancellor for New York City schools, the
largest school system in the country, reiterated that it
planned to bring students back for full-time, in-person learning in September.
“The science shows that our rigorous, multi-layered approach has made our schools the safest places to be, and we are reviewing the C.D.C. guidance with our health experts,” Ms. Porter said in a statement.
But no vaccines have been federally authorized for children under 12, and children have made up a greater proportion of cases as the pandemic has gone on, even though there are far fewer cases overall than during the winter peak.
Scientists are concerned about an
inflammatory syndrome that can emerge in children weeks after they contract the virus, even those who were
asymptomatic when they were infected, and some children experience lingering symptoms often known as
long Covid.
The highly transmissible Delta variant is spreading rapidly in areas with low rates of vaccination — the C.D.C. estimates it is now the
dominant variant in the United States.
Expert opinion on the new guidance was mixed.
Dr. Benjamin Linas, an infectious disease specialist at Boston University, called the suggestions “science-based and right on the mark.”
“For the first time, I really think they hit it on the nose,” he said.
Emily Oster, the Brown University economist and author of parenting books who waded last year
into the contentious debate over school reopenings, using data to argue that children should return to school in person, said that she was generally pleased with the agency’s framework, which she said gave districts a road map to reopen without being too prescriptive.
Though she had
pushed for even more relaxed guidance — doing away with the three-foot rule altogether, for example — she said the new recommendations gave districts important flexibility.
“This is, in some ways, the most positive I’ve been about their advice,” Dr. Oster said.
But Jennifer B. Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, worried that debate between local officials about the best safety protocols could prove “paralyzing.”
At a news conference on Friday, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that deciding which measures to implement had “always been the purview of local school districts.”
Reporting contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Emily Anthes and Sarah Mervosh.
—
Daniel E. Slotnik
www.espn.com
