The state has now over 1700 confirmed cases and over 50 people dead here to talkto us more.

About the Impact Cove in 19 has had on Mississippi is Governor Tate Reeves.

Welcome to you, Governor, and I know that a statewide stay at home order was placed into effect for Mississippi just this past Friday at 5 p.m. lot of people asking, Why not sooner?

Well, thank you for having me.

We made a decision to issue the shelter in place.

We believe shelter in place order should be short term in nature that you cannot expect people to comply if you do it for weeks and weeks and months and months on end.

And so we believe the most important tool that we can use in the shelter in places to do it.

At this point in the cycle, you know, different states, different points in the cycle.

We actually had other measures in place for weeks and weeks before we did the shelter in place, including in ensuring social distancing and outlawing group of 10 or more.

So, Governor, give me a sense of how your state is holding up right now as we're in this pandemic.

Well, we're hanging in there, you know, We've got a lot of people that are scared.

They have the virus.

A lot of people who don't have the virus, they're scared.

We've got off literally tens of thousands of Mississippians.

They're scared of death because they lost their jobs in the last 2 to 3 weeks.

So we've got not only a public health crisis, we also have uneconomic crisis on our hands when trying t o come out of this.

I'm curious how concerned you are about the increase in cases that is likely going to happen for your state and specifically about the spread that may happen along some of the more rural areas.

More rural communities in your state.

Well, we're very concerned about the spread.

We actually had a approximately 180 new cases overnight, So we're up to 1980 18 cases.

We have approximately eight deaths.

Overnights were up.

59 deaths were very concerned about.

We have implemented our plan.

We believe that we could be is his mini is 390.

That's short for all patients on again.

We're trying to plan for the worst, pray for the best and expect somewhere in between.

So I implemented our measures yesterday to increase our bed capacity in both north and South Mississippi to ensure that we have an adequate number of vets.

It's a challenge across the country is gonna be a challenge Here is Well, yeah, and I'm curious how you feel The federal government and the White House have handled this pen to make so far, especially as it pertains to your state.

Well, we certainly appreciate President Trump's support.

Hey has been diligent in Professor entire Corona Virus Task Force have been communicating with governors every single day throughout this crisis.

We appreciate his support.

We understand in Mississippi that disasters are state managed, locally executed and federally supported.

So it is imperative the governor step up and lean into this in these difficult times.

And we've had to support the way needed.

What is your message to the people of Mississippi right now?

Stay safe.

Stay home.

Stay smart.

If we will all do what we've asked, been asked to do for the next several weeks.

We're gonna build to get out of this on.

We're gonna be even stronger.

Coming out of Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate your time today.

Thank you.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos Here.

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