Mississippi hospitals have been overrun with Covid-19 patients, says survivor

Dolly Monceaux was unvaccinated when she was fighting the coronavirus in a Mississippi ICU last week and she was unable to see her family and struggling to breathe and sleep.

The 82-year-old from Jackson County, Mississippi, had been “on the fence” about getting the Covid-19 vaccination, but now she continues in the hospital fighting the virus, she has a different perspective, she said.

“You don’t know you’re gonna get it, and then you get it and you’re sick,” Monceaux told on Wednesday, breathing through an oxygen mask at Pascagoula Hospital – Singing River Health System. “You don’t know whether you’re gonna live or die.”

“All my family wasn’t going to get the shot, but now we are,” Monceaux said. “All my family.”

The first thing she wants to tell her family when she finally gets to see them, Monceaux panted, is “to go get the shot.”

She is one of thousands of unvaccinated Mississippi citizens who are rapidly overwhelming hospitals and medical groups across the state. While Mississippi battles its latest virus outbreak, the state is simultaneously bracing for the chaos that Tropical Storm Ida, which could be a major hurricane along the US Gulf Coast this weekend, may bring.

Mississippi State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers announced Tuesday that the state had recently set a new daily record for Covid-19-related deaths. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, more than 92 percent of the state’s 895 staffed ICU beds are in use, with Covid-19 patients making for more than 59 percent of those beds.

According to the Mississippi Department of Health, 90 percent of hospitalizations and 87 percent of deaths caused by Covid-19 occurred in patients who were unvaccinated or just partially vaccinated between July 29 and August 25. Only 2% of all cases were among those who had been vaccinated.