Hattiesburg Mayor Toby Barker’s briefing Tuesday night of the metro area’s COVID-19 patients included the largest number of the coronavirus patients in local medical facilities during the pandemic.
During Tuesday’s state briefing on COVID-19, Forrest County was included among five counties that were restricted from including elective surgery in local hospitals because of the number of positive-tested patients.
Following Gov. Tate Reeves’ Monday executive decision, Barker also agreed to set July 20 as the next deadline to continue wearing masks in public and limiting retail capacity limits.
Barker’s Monday briefing had reached an all-time high in the number of reported cases, and Tuesday’s numbers went to its ultimate. As of Tuesday morning, 25,564 people were tested in the metro area, and 2,349 tested positive.
“Right now, 53 people are in the hospital between Merit Health Wesley and Forrest General positive for COVID-19,” Barker said. “That is about nine (people) over the average for the last 14 days. We have an additional 24 who are under the investigation.”
Barker repeated the number of COVID-19 patients had increased in the past two days.
“As I said (Monday), our local hospital system is seeing the highest number of COVID-positive patients, particularly in the hospital that we have seen,” he said Tuesday. “It went from 51 (Monday) to 53 today. That’s a number we have to keep an eye on as we go forward.”
Barker repeated the city’s goals to help protect the residents who are affected by the pandemic.
“We want to make sure that we are protecting the vulnerable population,” he said. “We want to make sure that we're preventing overrunning of the health care system by slowing the spread and keep an eye on the hospitalization number and ICU number. We also need to continue prioritizing public health so the private sector can stay open."
Barker said four factors the city leans on are a widespread availability of testing, the wearing of masks, watching our own data, and listening to all voices.