Mississippi 2020 top stories: Virus, flag, prisons, storms
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUSDecember 28, 2020 GMT
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — More than one in every 1,000 Mississippi residents died of COVID-19 during 2020. And as the U.S. faced widespread protests over racial injustice, Mississippi legislators voted under pressure to retire a Confederate-themed state flag that had been used for 116 years.
COVID-19
Mississippi detected its first coronavirus cases in March, and the pandemic shook the economy, disrupted schools and scrambled people’s routines. Unemployment claims rose sharply as people lost jobs. Some could work from home, but many still had to report to factories or other places requiring in-person labor. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves set a statewide mask mandate for several weeks during the summer, but at other times set county-by-county mask mandates in places with the fastest spread of the virus. The state health officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, repeatedly implored people to wear masks, keep distance from others and skip nonessential gatherings.