COVID-19 cases rising again on the Coast

BILOXI, Miss. (WLOX) - COVID-19 cases are up across Mississippi, and the spike is being felt on the Coast. When COVID-19 cases rise, you usually see more people wearing masks, and that was the case on Thursday at Edgewater Mall.

Long Beach resident Joel Herr started having symptoms a week ago. He tested negative twice, but then took a third test.

“Prior to going to church on Sunday I took a test just to be safe and that got a positive result,” said Herr.

Herr is fully vaccinated and boosted, he describes his symptoms as a severe head cold or sinus infection with fatigue.

“I was thinking I would be coughing things up so it couldn’t be Covid, I don’t have that cough or anything like that, but that wasn’t the case with this,” Herr said. “All of the stuff was in my head like heavy sinus pressure on congestion up there.”

Mississippi hospitals are treating the most COVID-19 patients since February. According to Memorial Infectious disease specialist Dr. Nicholas Conger while hospitalizations are up, the patients he’s seeing for the most part aren’t needing intensive treatments.

“A lot of the patients don’t even know they have COVID, they’re here for other reasons,” said Conger. Almost all the patients are actually on room air or requiring very little if any oxygen. It’s really not attacking the lungs like the Delta strain, so patients are much less ill.”

Since the start of the pandemic in 2020 the case peaks have come in the summer and winter months and Conger said the trend is continuing this year.

“We were wondering if it was going to be a once a year or annual thing, but COVID in the last couple of years has shown to be a twice of year virus with a peak in the summer months, then another peak in the winter months,” Conger said.

Even though Herr doesn’t describe his symptoms as severe, it’s still a sickness he’d rather not have.

“I kind of had gotten to the point where we figured we might have had it and just didn’t know,” Herr said. “At this point I think you would know if you had it, it’s not your typical allergy or sinus, there’s a little more to it.”

The Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport is dealing with a COVID up tick as well. All residents were tested last week, 53 of those residents and six staff members tested positive. As a result masks are once again required in public spaces and the dining room is closed.

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