Field hospital opening in Mississippi amid rise in COVID-19 cases

A field hospital will open in Mississippi amid a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations that has put pressure on medical facilities. 

LouAnn Woodward, the head of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, said during a news conference Wednesday that a 50-bed field hospital will be placed in a parking garage and could be ready by Friday, The Associated Press reported.

Woodward said the field hospital is “a Band-Aid” as the states deal with the virus surge.

The state has seen a 121 percent increase in cases over the past two weeks and has averaged more than 2,000 new cases per day in the last seven days, according to data collected by The New York Times. 

Mississippi State Department of Health data showed there were 388 people in intensive care units in the state on Tuesday.

Gov. Tate Reeves (R) said that the largest issue the state faces is not having enough medical staff to deal with the rise in cases.

“Honestly, the real challenge is NOT the physical beds – hospital beds or ICU beds. The challenge is our hospitals may not have an adequate number of health care professionals (docs, nurses, respiratory therapists, etc.) to staff those beds,” Reeves said in a Facebook post. 

Reeves said the state has lost almost 2,000 nurses during the pandemic, citing layoffs and administrative decisions “such as mandating vaccines” that have caused them to vacate their positions. 

All of the Level 1, 2 and 3 hospitals’ intensive care units are full in Mississippi’s acute care systems, Thomas Dobbs, the state health officer, said, according to the AP.

Reeves listed other measures Mississippi is taking to combat the surge such as postponing elective surgeries and requesting help from other states.

News of the field hospital comes as the highly transmissible delta variant continues to rip through unvaccinated pockets of the U.S., including Mississippi, Texas, Florida and Louisiana.  As of Wednesday afternoon, only 35 percent of Mississippi residents are fully vaccinated, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Federal health officials have raised concerns in recent weeks about the spread of the variant, even among vaccinated populations. The new strain can penetrate the coronavirus vaccine, but those who are infected after vaccination by and large suffer minor symptoms.