Mayor Mario King placed the town of Moss Point, Mississippi, under a shelter-in-place order, after which Gov. Tate Reeves stepped in and voided it.
King placed the town of more than 13,000 located in southeast Mississippi under a shelter-in-place order on March 19 after an outbreak of the coronavirus hit neighboring communities in Jackson County. On Tuesday, Reeves passed an executive order deeming nearly all businesses as essential, effectively undoing shelter-in-place orders that ban nonessential businesses from operating.
“His order completely makes our order null and void,” King told the Mississippi Free Press on Thursday. “So barbershops and salons are open today. People are actually at church making up Bible studies lost on Wednesday, so they’re having Thursday Bible studies. There are restaurants that re-opened their dine-in services today. … I understand they’re just trying to make a dollar, but if one person sneezes who has COVID-19 and someone else comes in, they’re possibly exposed to that. So his order puts our people at risk.”
He added, “I just think this is complete foolishness and foolery, and it’s embarrassing. I am embarrassed not just as a mayor, but as a citizen of Mississippi. We are the laughingstock of the country because our governor has enacted an order that does not only protect the safety and welfare of the people, but puts Mississippians in harm’s way.”
Reeves’s executive order created an exemption for essential businesses to allow crowds of more than 10, meaning nearly every business in the state, including churches, dine-in restaurants, and other shops, will operate as normal.
King lamented the decision, saying, “I definitely think that he is 100% putting economic interests before people’s health. And at this point in time, he should not be worried about the dollar because people’s lives are at stake. I am 100% confident in saying that he has invested more into the financial impact that this will have instead of the health impact. But without people, we won’t have any economy.”
Mayor Jason Shelton of Tupelo, Mississippi, agreed with that sentiment.
“There’s no question that the purpose of the order was to keep businesses open, which is good for the economy. It’s definitely putting protections in place for the state’s economy. The flipside is that it’s doing that at the expense of human lives,” Shelton said.
King warned Reeves’s decision could overwhelm rural hospitals working to treat coronavirus patients. “I don’t want that to happen when we really start testing and our people are not able to have ICU beds because they’re filling up with other people from other places because of negligence — at best — of our government,” King said.
“Why are we putting all those people out there at risk? That is utterly ridiculous, and I am ashamed of our governor, and I cannot believe that he would do such a thing. I just cannot believe it,” he said, later adding, “He has demonstrated his inability to lead us. And so if he can’t lead, I think he needs to step back and let the cities do what they’re doing, because we’re doing a much better job than he is.”
As of Friday morning, Mississippi has 485 cases of the coronavirus and five related deaths. The neighboring state of Louisiana has more than 2,300 cases and 60 deaths.
