WTVA talks with medical professionals and local mayors about coronavirus

WTVA anchor Craig Ford talked with medical professionals and the mayors of Amory, Starkville and Tupelo.

This is part of WTVA's coronavirus coverage.

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Testing joining us, i'm craig ford.

>> you've heard from national politicians and national experts about the coronavirus, but for the next 30 minutes, we wanted you to hear from people here at home, hear what they have to say about where we stand now with this disease.

Some local mayors will join us to talk abot what's happening with their communities during the pandemic.

But the first part of the progrm is with local doctors, local medical professionals who are experts concerning the coronavirus.

>> joining us on zoom is dr. hf mason of baptist memorial hospital.

He is the hospital chief medical officer.

Also with us is the chief medicl officer for north mississippi health services, dr. jeremy blanchard and certified nurse practitioner, brandy mccain.

>> dr. mason, since we did a program earlier, i figured i would start with you.

Where do we stand with the coronavirus as we talk right now?

Well, i think in mississippi is where we stand, we are continuig to see increased cases.

If you look at the -- you look t the daily counts, even as early as last week, we had one of our highest new case counts, daily case counts since the pandemic started.

The last few days it has started trending down, but i think more importantly than that is you can look at our -- the number of hospitalizations that we are having due to the coronavirus ad i think -- i think we are headig in the right direction.

We are seeing some increased cases which may be due to increased testing that we're seeing, maybe a little bit bettr reporting, but i do think that that the hospitalizations is trending down, which is positive.

>> so, dr. blanchard has the threat diminished or do people still need to be very concerned about this virus?

>> you know, it's a tough question when you ask it that way, because the threat is going to be present until we have the vaccine, i believe.

However, we -- social distancing has allowed us to flatten the curve, and in mississippi we hae a lower prevalence of the virus than, say, in new york or new jersey, although we haven't been able to do formal testing and te results of our testing would led us to think that, but it's extremely contagious, so the future of this virus in the stae of mississippi is really in the hands listeners, social distancing and respecting that this virus is super contagious and caring enough about the other individual who they're around to protect them y wearing a mask.

>> miss mccain, can you give me an idea or give us an idea just how reliable the testing is for this virus?

>> i personally think that the pcr testing is a lot more reliable.

I think what we need to get out to the community, though, is whn we do the pcr testing, that they ensure that they are having symptoms for those.

If you're not having the symptoms, then the virus may not be detected on the pcr swab.

>> now, when you say pcr, what s that?

>> that is the nasal swab that we're actually doing to test.

>> got you.

Got you.

>> dr. mason, can you explain why -- we keep hearing about its difficult for everybody to get tested.

Why is that difficult?

>> well, i think one of the reasons is that when we first started testing for covid-19, we we were testing only symptomatic patients, people who had traveled from a zone that ws at high risk and also it was vey difficult at that time to get te testing kits.

And as we started seeing production ramping up, it is becoming more readily available to the public and i think as we start talking about testing asymptomatic patients, you're going to see it's going to be a lot easier for people to get tested.

>> dr. blanchard, as you well know, mississippi as well as alabama this week are starting o open up barber shops and hair salons and tattoo parlor, that sort of thing.

We know the state is requiring them to have certain standards n place, deep cleaning, that sort of thing, but if i'm going, if somebody who is watching is goig to one of those places, what do they need to do to protect themselves?

>> dr. blanchard, can you hear us?

>> i tell you what, i'll stick with doctor mason.

What would be your advice to folks going to these various places that have opened up?

>> well, when it comes to hair salons and barber shops, one of the first things that i would recommend to people, to clients and customers is to call the salon, call the barber shop and ask them what type of precautios they are taking themselves to make their customers and their clients safe.

Are they -- are they wearing masks themselves?

Are they -- are they taking away items such as magazines, you know, magazine racks that can -- that -- so people can't touch those.

What is their cleaning policy between customers?

Are they trying to do things to socially distance the customers.

I would -- and i would also recommend wearing a mask themselves.

>> all right.

We were going to take a quick break.

We will return with more of our wtva 9 news coronavirus special after this.

We welcome you back.

>> we have our three guests.

>> dr. blanchard, i want to ask you this.

I heard this question the other day.

Daughter and mother are wanting to meet, daughter is, let's say, 49, mother is in her 80s.

Where we stand now, what is the -- what can the two of them do?

I mean, are they just good with the masks?

Do they need to do social distancing?

Can they even hug one another?

What's your advice?

>> well, i think that's a -- the first thing and most important thing is are they both asymptomatic.

If one of them has symptoms they should avoid each other.

>> but if they're both asymptomatic, my recommendation would be that both wear a mask.

The daughter who is visiting the home of her mother, make sure hr hands are clean and wash her hands well, and then they really should decrease their contact ad minimize social interaction in a close nature.

So i wouldn't recommend hugging at this point, which for me is difficult.

I'm a real hugger myself, so i recognize the challenges with that, but i think that's the mot important thing is the daughter does her best to protect her mother and yet wants to be present with her.

>> miss mccain, as a medical professional, what is your advie as far as whether people should wear masks in public?

We know that businesses, they're required, but just, you know, being out and about, and it sees to be a very sensitive subject with people.

What is your advice?

Should they just make it general practice to wear a mask regardless of whenever they're going out?

>> i do agree that it is a good idea to wear the mask when you are out in public as long as the person that is wearing it wheres it wears it correctly and that would be over the nose and the mouth.

It's not effectively covering te mouth or the nose, then it's really not doing you much good.

>> i would also encourage that before they were to take the mak off that they wash their hands thoroughly for at least 20 seconds before getting this hans close to their face to remove that mask.

>> dr. mason, how long can you get by with wearing the same mask?

I know it seems like i've heard some conflicting things about, you know, whether you could go for a few days, a cloth mask needs to be washed every day.

What's your recommendation?

>> that's a good question, and s you said, there are some conflicting reports.

I think that any mask that you'e wearing, should it become moist, if it's a disposable mask, throw it away and get another one.

I would not recommend wearing a disposable mask more than a day.

That's -- that's my practice.

I have one that i have with me, and at the end of the day i thrw it away and i get a new one the next morning.

However, should it become spoild or moist during the day, i'll gt a new one then.

>> you see a lot of people out there getting creative with sewing their own mask, their cloth mask and i think that's great.

>> i do think that i would recommend washing those daily or at least having a few on hand so that you can have a clean one to use every day.

>> dr. blanchard, i know the hospital, north mississippi health services hospital recenty started back with elective surgeries or some of them did.

What is going on -- what surgeries are happening now, what's not happening?

Can you sort of give us a snapshot as far as where things stand as far as your hospitals?

>> sure.

Continuing to evolve during the covid, you know, sort of main surge time like all other hospitals, we follow the mississippi state department of health recommendations with dr. beyers and only doing emergent cases and expanding -- and there's a different tiering system, but basically elective procedures, and really procedurs that were very orally and oriented.

What happens is when you enter the mouth or the airways, if someone sneezes or coughs, the virus, if they have the virus, o minimizing those and doing thos, such as putting in a breathing tube, wearing appropriate equipment to protect the caregiver, so now we're doing such things as robotic surgeries and we're doing about 40 cases a do and feel comfortable for the patient and the providers based on everyone wearing a mask and the appropriate cleaning techniques and i'm sure dr. mason's institution is using them as well, and ours include special ultraviolet as well as vaporized hydrogen peroxide approaches and screening our providers as well that are doing the surgery.

>> i want to thank all three of you for taking time out of your busy day to help people locally, help us to try to share what we need to do as we continue down this road with the coronavirus pandemic.

Thank you all so much.

>> we've got more of our wtva 9 news coronavirus special after this.

>> welcome back to our wtva 9 news coronavirus special.

I'm craig ford.

We now shift the focus from the medical side of the pandemic to the community and economic side.

Joining us are three local mayos who like many elected officials are trying to navigate their communities through all of this.

We welcome mayor jason shelton, thank you all for joining us.

Mayor, i'll start with you.

I know you've had some change in the city over the weekend regarding masks if i'm not mistaken.

If you would, share with us whee you were, what changed, and why.

>> sure.

I'll be delighted to and thank you for having me on.

>> we were at having masks required for both employees and the public who were frequenting public businesses, so if you wee at lowe's or walmart or any of the local businesses, you needed to wear a mask from a public standpoint as well as the employees wearing masks.

And we've been monitoring and responding every time the governor changed an executive order, we would have been -- reflect on what we were doing ad try to follow or try to mitigate what we were doing and match wht he was doing.

So when the restaurants opened for in-house dining, we felt lie we needed for clarity to change our requirement for masks to -- that would be an area where you didn't need a mask.

Obviously it's going to be tough to eat your grilled cheese sandwich, which is what i had fr lunch, with a mask on, just for clarity sake we changed that.

And then when he changed on friday to requiring or opening gyms and exercise facilities as well as the barber shops and beauty shops, you can't really exercise.

It's not feasible to exercise with a mask on.

So at that point in time, we fet like, again, we were at a -- we were picking and choosing and where did this stop and how much further did we go along, so what we did is dropped the mask requirement for the public and employees and made it a strong suggestion and that was part of the reason for that is because the governor also in his executive order provided places to have masks.

You know, the barber shops and the beauty shops and nail salon, require masks of the employees and for the customers.

The exercise facilities or gyms are requiring masks for the employees.

So there was such a disparity there of exactly how it should e handled, it felt like the governor had adequately addressd it to that point.

It was a divided vote for us.

People are still concerned about the elderly, so one of the thins i'm going to try to do this week and work with our local businesses and suggest to them that having masked hours, becaue a lot of businesses when this first started is they had hours for the elderly, so i was hoping perhaps we might find a time whn maybe a couple times during the day that the -- those who are feeling vulnerable and not comfortable would be made to fel more comfortable if they had hours when only masks were allowed in, and so that's kind f our effort to compromise and offer an opportunity for everyoe to feel comfortable getting back out in the community.

So that was the rationale behind that.

>> got you.

Mayor, for folks who come to tupelo is everything in town similar or mirror the governor's orders at this moment?

Is there anything different?

>> yes, sir.

The rules in tupelo right now mirror those enacted by the governor through his executive order.

We -- we got ahead of this the best we could in the city of tupelo.

Since the governor has began doing executive orders, we've tried to follow what the governr is doing, so that's where we're at right now.

I think as far as consistency, s far as both our citizens being able to understand the rules, that's what we thought would be best.

>> so right now in the city of tupelo, the rules in place mirrr that of the governor.

What we also have released from our economic recovery task force was a set of guidelines or recommendations fr businesses.

But those are the recommendatios as far as the rules in place mirroring what the governor is doing in tupelo.

Mayor, are you pretty much following the governor's order?

>> craig, we too are mirroring what the governor's orders have been all along, especially this last one.

Short of what mayor shelton just said, we felt it very important to try to be as consistent as possible across our population rather than try to hodgepodge things here.

It's difficult to get the information out anyway and to change certain things that arent necessarily in conjunction with what the governor's order -- and would be very difficult to put that information out there, number one and it would be difficult for other side to enforce that as well, so we have mirrored just as tupelo has what governor reeves has put out thee for us.

>> we're going to take a quick break and come back and i want o talk a little bit about enforcement of these orders as well as the tax revenues, where your communities stand economically.

More of this wtva 9 news coronavirus special after this.

We're back with our wtva 9 news coronavirus special.

Mayor, i wanted to ask you, what has been your advice to law enforcement in your community as far as enforcing the governor's orders?

>> i think this all began, even when we put out our first executive order and executive orders from the governor that followed has been to warn people -- for the most part have been leading areas if there have been congregates of large numbers.

They have disbursed when asked o do so.

We've been lucky in that regard.

Mayor shelton, what about tupelo?

>> the police have the authority to enforce the orders here, and we have issued some citations fr various things in violation of the -- the orders to congregate.

Some of the -- i think just one or two businesses, but by and large we've had good compliance here in the city of tupelo, but the police, just like any other rules and regulations have the authority they need to enforce the rules.

>> mayor, what about starkville?

Any issues as far as enforcement?

>> and we may have lost her.

But mayor shelton, since we have you, economically, as far as the city's tax revenues go, do you have any sense as to how much of a hit the city is taking because of the -- because of the shutdown, the stay-at-home order?

>> the impact of it is huge.

It's going to be felt all across the country, the state here in tupelo.

The general fund of tupelo, we'e already reduced about $2.5 million.

We are planning to go up to $4 million in budget cuts becaue of covid-19.

We're hopeful the mississippi legislature will be able to provide some relief.

I think they're doing all they can and allocating the cares act fund.

I'm optimistic that the policies of small businesses across the state will see some relief.

>> mayor, economically, how is the city doing?

>> i think we're having some issues.

Let's go to mayor blaylock.

Economically, how are you doing?

>> revenue wise for a couple of months, what the impact has bee, of course, we're not expecting there to be a windfall of tax revenue coming in, especially in a situation like this.

However, unlike tupelo, we are a smaller community and we functin off of a lot of small businesse, many of whom were able to make adjustments, restaurants especially were able to make adjustments in the way they do business.

Our local grocery stores that ae privately owned were able to mae adjustments.

We're hopeful we will be okay.

We do anticipate some pain in other areas in our economy.

Right now our city is able to function quite well.

I echo what mayor shelton said, we are hopeful on the allocation of the cares funding to be distributed widely from our stae legislature, so we'll know more in the weeks to come.

>> thank you for joining us for this special and apologize to them and to you for any technicl issues we had during our interviews.