Large parties to blame for Biloxi High school shutdown

Governor Tate Reeves says large parties are to blame for the recent COVID-19 outbreak at Biloxi High School which forced them to switch to distance learning for the next two weeks.

A total of 15 Biloxi High students tested positive for the coronavirus and another 234 were asked to quarantine due to potential exposure.

State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs says with a situation like this, it was the right decision, however these social events were highly unnecessary. Dr. Dobbs said, “If we want to have football and we want to have school, we can’t have social events, even social events that violate the executive orders that are on the books. So, please, please be careful, don’t have parties, if you’re a parent for goodness sake please don’t sanction them or conduct them yourselves because you’re not only putting your kids at risk but you’re also putting the entire educational system at risk.”

Governor Reeves said, “These large social gatherings where there are four or five people that are found to be positive, even though they may not have known that they had the virus and they may have been asymptomatic, is going to lead to a scenario in which, potentially, you’ve got 25-33% of the entire school mandated to be under quarantine because they came into close contact with these positive cases. Well, at some point that’s such a large number that they decide to more or less quarantine the entire school for 14 days.”

Biloxi High School is expected to return back to in-person classes on September 8^th.