County sees spike in Covid

Mississippi County health officer Dr. Valencia Andrews-Pirtle led Wednesday’s Covid briefing as the county saw its first spike in nearly a month. Pirtle reported 84 active cases, after only 56 were reported last week.

After holding vaccine clinics specifically for children ages 5-11 on Nov.8-10, Pirtle also confirmed the county health departments will continue to offer children’s vaccines during regular department hours. Currently, Pfirzer is still the only vaccine approved for children.Local pharmacies are also scheduled to begin receiving children's vaccines in the upcoming week.

Booster shots for adults are also still available at the health department. Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson boosters can all be received there on a daily basis.

While reporting that the police department is currently free of any Covid cases, Blythevilel Police Chief Ross Thompson addressed the recent flare of threats against local school districts and how to handle them.

“When you get these things on your Facebook page, Snapchat or Instagram, and you screenshot it and send it back out, you’ve done the same thing that the original person did .Stop sending it out,” Thompson said. “Take it to a school official or a police officer.”

Thompson also recalled previous cases where repostings of online threats have resulted in charges being filed.

He also gave a description on how the department handles these threats with a measured response to each individual threat.

“Yes, the police department takes them serious. These things have taken a lot of our men away from other investigations. We’ve invested our resources, investigators and patrol officers to the schools for these threats,” Thompson said.

“When threats come out, we will always have extra officers at the schools. We have to look at each threat individually. In these last few, we’ve been on the campuses and assisted inside the school with administrators on checking backpacks and lockers. Our support is there with those administrators and school personnel.”

Thompson also urged parents to stay involved on what children are seeing and accessing via social media on a regular basis.