Mississippi does away with phased plan, opens vaccinations to all

SOUTHAVEN, Miss. (WMC) - In just hours all Mississippians will be eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

The Kroger on Stateline Road in Southaven is one of the many locations across North Mississippi offering the COVID-19 vaccine.

And starting Tuesday, anyone can get the vaccine. The news comes as the state saw a drop in the number of people getting vaccinated.

Related | Vaccines open to all Mississippians Tuesday

Tuesday is Marques Wright’s 39th birthday and if he wanted to he could celebrate it by getting a vaccine.

“No, I haven’t gotten it yet,” said Wright.

We asked if he planned to get it and Wright replied, “Um, I’m still thinking on it.”

With a Monday Morning tweet, Governor Tate Reeves announced the state was doing away with the phased-in approach to vaccination.

Opening it up to any Mississippian.

In Mississippi over 888,000 vaccines have been administered.

Friday, Reeves said the state had their best day ever putting over 31,000 shots in arms.

However, since Jan. 30 the state has reported a weekly increase in total vaccinations -- the one exception was during the week of the snowstorm.

But that changed last week -- the state reporting more than 10,000 fewer vaccinations administered than the week before.

We reached out to the state health department for an explanation but didn’t get an answer.

But Wright thinks he knows why.

“They wanna make sure it’s working. It’s safe,” said Wright. “People don’t want to take something just because they say it’s working and they guarantee it’s working. They don’t believe that. I don’t.”

Carmen Thompson of Senatobia says she is worried about how quickly the vaccine was created.

“I’m actually warming up to it,” she said. “At first I said, I would not do it, but I’m warming up to it. It appears to be effective the numbers are going down.”

But a bout with COVID-19 is what’s making her possibly change her mind.

“It was bad, it was like a really bad flu but my husband was really sick,” said Thompson.

She’s concerned about getting the virus again by contracting one of the COVID-19 variants.

So she may take Reeves up on his offer.

The Kroger on Stateline Road is completely booked this week but there are slots available starting next week.

You can sign up for an appointment at https://covidvaccine.umc.edu/.

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