Anxious-looking Reeves declares state of emergency, asks churches not to meet

Northeast MS -Governor Tate Reeves announced a state of emergency Saturday afternoon, March 14, along with plans for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic in Mississippi.

The governor appeared nervous as he read his statement from a teleprompter three days after the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in the state. He had left the country and was in Spain when the first Mississippi case was confirmed Wednesday, March 11.

Today, Mississippi has six positive cases of coronavirus infection in four counties. Three patients are hospitalized.

Local mayors and other local Northeast Mississippi leaders had announced mitigation plans 48 hours earlier. Although his announcement was slow in coming, Reeves described plans that seemed to most Mississippians well thought out and sensible.

One important part of controlling a virus is mitigation, or controlling the speed at which a virus spreads. The idea is to spread the inevitable number of infections over a longer period of time. (For why this is important, and ways to accomplish it, click virus mitigation and churches. Contains streaming list)

To this end Reeves asks citizens to “stay away from large gatherings”, such as at chuches, sports events, etc. He states that “We can worship from home,” and asks that we work from home if we can. Reeves, who just returned from a trip to Spain, says that he and his family will be practicing “social distancing” and that he will be “voluntarily working from home for the next two weeks, out of an abundance of caution.”

Due to the advisability of avoiding large crowds, MS churches have been asked not to hold face-to-face services for large audiences. NEMiss.news is aware of several local churches which hare, in fact, urged their members to stay home tomorrow. Many churches provide streaming of services for members who cannot attend “live.” NEMiss.NEWS published an article early this morning on this very subject. (See link, above) It contains links to area churches that stream their services for those who cannot attend live services.

Any church that provides on-line streaming can be added to the list of links on that article by sending NEMiss.NEWS their streaming link at news@nemiss.news.

Reeves declares state of emergency:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wIgdlUvtu98TGO2B3kWT6Q73QIweeAMB/view