Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves told Newsmax TV on Monday that his state can slow the spread of the coronavirus without ordering a widespread lockdown in response to rising case numbers.
"There are other things that we can do short of shutting down our economy," Reeves told "John Bachman Now" on Monday after noting that coronavirus cases are rising in Mississippi and in the rest of the country.
"If we be smart and not gather in large groups, if we will wear a mask, that will go a long way, not towards eliminating the virus but actually slowing the spread of it," he added. "Because our goal in Mississippi … our goal from the beginning has not been to eradicate the virus or eliminate the virus, because we realize that that's an unrealistic goal. Our goal is to ensure that every single Mississippian that can get better with quality care receives that quality care, and so we spend a lot of time looking at the data on hospitals."
The governor said, "There is no doubt that we have more coronavirus patients in our hospitals today than we've had at any time since the middle of August, but we are still at about 56% [capacity] from an ICU [intensive care unit] bed standpoint from where we were at our peak."
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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