On Monday morning the Jones County Board of Supervisors extended by 30 days an emergency proclamation they had made back on March 16. The unanimous vote was in response to a request by EOC Director Paul Sheffield.
The proclamation allows local entities like the Emergency Operations Center and South Central Regional Medical Center to access resources from the state of Mississippi that they normally cannot get.
The supervisors continue to monitor the COVID-19 outbreak, and they are urging local residents to embrace the guidelines issued by the CDC and the Mississippi State Department of Health. The board recently adopted a resolution to follow the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and the MSDH during the coronavirus pandemic.
The guidelines include practicing social distancing (6 feet recommended), leaving home only for necessary tasks, and avoiding gatherings of more than 10 people.
“We’re asking Jones County residents to stay at home as much as possible,” stated Board President Johnny Burnett, who made special mention of the tremendous effort that local doctors and nurses are giving to keep people safe. “They are putting their lives on the line.
“Please be safe,” he continued, “and don’t do anything in public that you don’t have to. The supervisors, the sheriff and all the county government offices are asking the public to help them fight this.”
Sheriff Joe Berlin concurred with Burnett and noted that there is a fine involved for those who ignore the order. “If it comes to a point of citing someone, we will,” said Berlin.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t affected Mississippi as severely as some other states, our state has suffered 51 deaths so far with 1,700+ confirmed cases of the disease. South Central Regional Medical Center has had 14 confirmed positive cases, as of 5 p.m. Sunday. One of Jones County’s neighboring counties, Forrest, has 46 confirmed cases with one death.
As of early Monday morning (April 6), the United States had nearly 338,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 9,600+ deaths.
On the flu front in the United States, the CDC reports that there have been 400,000+ hospitalizations from the flu, with estimates between 24,000 – 63,000 deaths during the 2019-2020 flu season. Those CDC estimates are for the time period October 1, 2019 - March 28, 2020, and are for the U.S. only.
The supervisors also voted to investigate the legality of using county funds to help feed the local doctors, nurses and other medical personnel fighting COVID-19. If permitted the supervisors plan to pay to feed the medical personnel one day a week until the outbreak is suppressed in our area.
In other matters the supervisors approved the next quarterly allocation of the Sheriff Department’s budget, which is $1.48 million. The sheriff’s budget and the road fund budgets are all operating under budget at this point of the fiscal year, noted County Administrator Danielle Ashley.
The supervisors moved forward on the refinancing of two older county bonds (2009 & 2010) at a new 1.25 percent rate.