After big county fair, virus hits hard in rural Mississippi

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A rural Mississippi community is overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases, two weeks after hosting the Neshoba County Fair that drew thousands who lived in cabins, attended shoulder-to-shoulder outdoor concerts and listened to stump speeches — including one by the Republican governor, who decried federal masking guidance as “foolish."

Frustrated by rising COVID-19 infections, the chief executive officer of the 25-bed Neshoba General Hospital posted a message on social media this week challenging Gov. Tate Reeves to step up and show leadership.

“@tatereeves hospitals and healthcare workers need you to help us. Where are you?” Lee McCall wrote Tuesday on Twitter. “We are overwhelmed with the surge of Covid and understaffed to safely care for our patients. Our incredible staff are holding it together but we are all at our breaking point.”

This week alone, Mississippi has broken its single-day record of new COVID-19 cases three times, with more than 3,000 cases reported Tuesday, more than 4,000 Thursday and more than 5,000 Friday. The state on Thursday broke records for patients hospitalized and patients in ICUs with COVID-19; those numbers increased again Friday. The previous records were in January, before vaccinations were widely available.

Reeves posted Wednesday on Twitter: “In spite of the angry rhetoric coming from so many, our emergency management team is doing what it does - we are calmly dealing with an ever-changing environment to meet the needs of Mississippi."

It wasn’t clear whether the governor was responding to McCall or the many other critics who have said Reeves has done too little amid the surge in virus cases.

Reeves made several trips outside Mississippi this summer, including to a Republican Governors Association meeting in Colorado, a...