Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves told Newsmax TV Friday that his state has been successful at keeping the number of coronavirus patients in check because of contact tracing that resulted in far fewer hospitalizations than were predicted.
During an interview on "Greg Kelly Reports," Reeves said his state is starting to reopen from virus-related closures because of the job his teams did statewide.
"We're letting data and science drive our decision making here. We were one of the latest states to adhere to a shelter in place order. We did so in a responsible way though," Reeves said.
"Our initial approach to COVID-19 was to test a lot, to identify those who have COVID-19, and then to isolate them and those who they have come in contact with. So we have been doing contact tracing since the beginning."
The governor then explained that the number of patients in his state hospitalized with the coronavirus was much lower than a University of Washington model predicted. The same was true for people who required ventilators.
"On March 30, they predicted that we would need 8,987 beds in Mississippi. We had less than 400 people in hospital beds yesterday," he said. "They projected that we would need almost 1,100 ventilators in Mississippi. We had 82 patients on ventilators yesterday.
"Our strategy is working and that's the reason we're able to now get back to work and start focusing on our economic recovery."
As of Friday evening, Mississippi has seen 5,434 COVID-19 cases and 209 deaths.
Important: Find Newsmax TV in 70 million U.S. cable homes on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Optimum Ch. 102; U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Spectrum, Suddenlink, Wow! or More Systems Here.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.