At the Mississippi Medical Association’s weekly COVID-19 update, the focus is on warning people about the severity of the Delta variant surge. State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs says it's extremely contagious.
“CDC in some sort of preliminary information has shared that it has an r and r value, looks like 8 to 9. What that means is each person gives it to eight to nine people. This is phenomenally contagious,” said Dobbs.
Friday, the state health department reported more than 1,600 cases and 10 deaths. Dobbs says they’re discovering people who are vaccinated can have mild to no symptoms but infect others. He explains he tested a mother who was vaccinated. Her child wasn’t vaccinated and tested positive.
“Tested the mom and the mom felt perfectly normal, felt great, no problems, she had a super high viral load. Super, super contagious and she felt fine. She still feels fine,” said Dobbs.
Dobbs says the best defense is to get vaccinated and wear a mask in public. State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers says the infectious rate of the Delta variant may lead to schools imposing virtual learning. He’s recommending universal masking at schools.
“We’re already seeing for those schools that started back, that they’re seeing a pretty significant number of cases and number of exposed individuals,” said Byers.
Lamar County School District notified parents at two schools there will be virtual learning for a couple of weeks because of a high rate of COVID-19 transmissions.
