Governor Tate Reeves says Mississippi will not return to widespread masking or rules on COVID-19.

In a statement issued Monday morning, Reeves said, “Mississippians will not and should not submit to fear again. In the early days of COVID, there was understandable uncertainty. We did not yet know what we were facing. As the months unfolded, it became clear that there were two pandemics. A disease that was easy to spread and that was deadly for many vulnerable people. And a pandemic of fear stoked by ‘the expert class’ that demanded total subjugation of the American people.”

The governor stressed that individuals have a right to make their own decisions, to decide how much risk they will tolerate.

“If you want to take extraordinary measures to protect yourself from getting sick, God bless you,” Reeves said in the statement. “That is your right and you should do what you think is best. Maybe you’re the smartest of all of us. But we are never going back to 2020.”

As of Monday, Lincoln County had a low level of hospital admissions for COVID-19. In the first two weeks of August, Mississippi’s statewide hospital admissions for the virus were 100 and 121. These numbers are higher than the months of March-July — which averaged 59 admissions per week — but are still fewer than February, with an average of 180; January, with an average of 325; and December, which had an average of 257 admissions per week. One year ago, in August 2022, Mississippi hospitals saw an average of 316 admissions weekly for the virus.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 46.5% of Lincoln County residents — 15,884 people — have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine; 40.4% (13,792) have completed a primary series of vaccinations, and 5.2% (1,782) have had at least one booster.

“We will go to school, we will go to church, we will go to work, and we will play sports,” Reeves said. “We will live in self-determination, not top-down fear.”