NATCHEZ, Miss. (Nov. 15) – Adams County supervisors today voted to end the county’s COVID state of emergency Nov. 30 as more people are vaccinated and fewer sickened by the disease that’s plagued the world since March 2020.
“I’m looking at the numbers and they’re going down. People are doing what they need to do,” said Adams County Emergency Management Director Brad Bradford. “We have enough people in the county vaccinated to let that (emergency declaration) go away.”
People, he noted, want “to get back to some kind of normalcy.”
Of Adams County’s total population, 43 percent have been fully vaccinated from the respiratory disease and 51 percent have received at least one dose of the COVID shot, according to the state Department of Health’s Monday report.
While 125 Adams County residents have died from the disease since March 2020 and 4,675 have been infected, cases have been on a marked decline since early August. That’s when more than 200 Adams County residents in one week tested positive for COVID-19.
Eight Adams County residents died from COVID within one week in August – the most on record — but the number of deaths has fallen since that spike. Eight people from Adams County have died in the past 10 weeks, according to the Department of Health data.
Only 12 Adams County residents were newly diagnosed with the coronavirus in the week ending Nov. 6, the lowest weekly count since June 2020.
The emergency COVID declaration had given county officials various special powers, which Bradford noted includes imposing restrictions on crowds gathering.
A countywide mask mandate had been in effect July 2020 until May 2021 with penalties for violators. While Adams County supervisors rescinded that order, they did in August adopt a face-covering directive with no penalties.
Supervisor Ricky Gray was the only one of the five-member county board voting today against lifting the emergency declaration. He expressed concerns about COVID surging during the approaching winter months.
“COVID is still here. It’s not going anywhere,” said Gray, the only Adams County supervisor who wears a face covering during board meetings. “We need to get back to normal, but we don’t need to stop wearing masks.”
The county board’s decision to let the emergency declaration expire at the end of November comes as Gov. Tate Reeves is lifting Mississippi’s state of emergency on Saturday.
“With more than 3,000,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine having been administered in Mississippi, and with COVID-19 infections and resulting hospitalizations being effectively managed, it’s time to end the state of emergency,” Reeves said last week in announcing his decision.
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