Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves told Newsmax TV on Wednesday that recovering from storms and tornadoes in the state has become even more “challenging” during the coronavirus pandemic.
Twelve people died as a result of storms in Mississippi on Sunday, which caused damage in 30 counties across the state and left about 37,000 people without power for multiple days.
Reeves told “The National Report” that recovering from these storms has “been very challenging” because “the fact that we have a pandemic complicates our recovery from the tornadoes, and the fact that we had tornadoes complicates our efforts to prepare for and social distance in respect to the pandemic.”
However, he said, “we’re used to dealing with tornadoes in Mississippi, particularly in April of every year. What we’re not used to is tornadoes that carry wind in excess of 200 mph, that stay on the ground for 80-plus miles.”
The governor added that Mississippi officials are “becoming more and more confident” that the state’s hospital system can handle the outbreak, and that “while we have 120 fatalities” in the state from COVID-19, “we have approximately 100,000 Mississippians that have lost their jobs in the last three weeks.”
He said, “we not only have a public health crisis before us, we also have an economic crisis,” adding, “we have got to get our economy back open, so as to mitigate long term economic damage, which is ultimately going to lead to long-term public health damage in our state and across this country.”
Reeves noted that Mississippi’s shelter-in-place order is set to expire on April 20, and that state officials have “a vital six days” before they have to make a “decision on what that looks like when we try to come out on the other side” of this crisis.
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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