"Our clinics are overrun": Pediatric COVID-19 cases spike in Mississippi
Coronavirus cases in children have surged over the last month — from around 38,000 at the end of July to more than 180,000 last week, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
In Mississippi alone, three weeks into the school year, COVID-19's toll on kids is staggering. Almost 12,000 students have tested positive for the virus, with nearly 29,000 now quarantined.
Sadder still is M'Kayla Robinson's COVID story. The 13-year-old eighth grader started feeling sick on Wednesday, August 11, and died from COVID that Saturday.
"That was my only daughter. My only child," said Justin Waddell, M'Kayla's father.
"We've never seen anything happen like this in three days," Waddell said. "It was a shock to everybody. The whole family."
In Mississippi, barely one out of every three people has been fully vaccinated, the country's second-lowest state rate.
Governor Tate Reeves also opposes mask mandates, even in schools, despite a COVID surge that has alarmed many parents and doctors.
"I have no intention of issuing a vaccine mandate. Period," Reeves said at a press conference.
Pediatrician Dr. Anita Henderson, who works at the Hattiesburg Clinic, described COVID's impact on kids as a "freight train."
"And what I mean by a freight train is our clinics are overrun," Henderson told CBS News' Mark Strassmann.
"And what would you say to people who say, 'They're young, they'll be fine?'" Strassmann asked.
"We're seeing in our pediatric population kids who can't play the flute anymore, kids who can't participate in sports anymore," Henderson said. "And that's heartbreaking."
Worrisome to Henderson: more than half of this state's 82 counties have no pediatricians.
Little Shelby Davion got lucky. She spent nearly two weeks in the ICU after developing Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a rare but dangerous condition that can appear after COVID-19 infection.
"The staff told us she's a miracle," her father, Jamey Davion, said. "That she was that sick and that she was one of the worst they had seen."
The governor has called in about a thousand extra health care professionals to reinforce 61 short-staffed hospitals in the state.
Saint Dominic's Hospital in Jackson has been clobbered by COVID the last five weeks. All 64 ICU beds are full, more than half with COVID patients. A tent is being used for overflow COVID patients, to screen and test them.
Twenty paramedics could show up as reinforcements at Saint Dominic's as soon as Wednesday, but like hospitals throughout the state, it could use a break from the viral siege.