Mississippi governor skips town for Republican event while state hospitals in COVID crisis: report

On Wednesday, the Mississippi Free Press reported that Gov. Tate Reeves (R-MS) left his state to attend a Republican governors' event — as hospitals in his state continue to explode from the surge of COVID-19 and health care workers are begging for help.

"'Hospitals and healthcare workers need you to help us,' Neshoba General Hospital CEO Lee McCall tweeted desperately at Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves yesterday as COVID-19 continued to overwhelm the state's least vaccinated county. 'Where are you?'" reported Ashton Pittman. "The answer, Arizona's governor inadvertently revealed, was that the Mississippi governor was once again out of state."

The Mississippi Free Press noted that Reeves decided to attend a Republican Governors' Association meeting "just one day after the state health officer announced that no intensive-care beds remained statewide."

The situation for Mississippi hospitals has grown dire in recent days -- Neshoba General Hospital, for instance, is reportedly clearing out a parking lot to make room for the patients for whom it lacks beds.

This is not the first time Reeves has left the state during the crisis; he has been pictured at another event in Florida earlier this summer without wearing a mask. He has often struggled to explain why his officials are failing to get Mississippi vaccinated, as the state has among the worst immunization rates nationwide.