Mississippi governor refuses to participate in nationwide lockdown

Tate Reeves, Mississippi's governor, has stated that the state would refuse to participate in any potential national lockdown in the future due to the pandemic.

"The fact is that we're going to try to work with whomever the president is, but we're not going to participate in a nationwide lockdown. This notion that one of his advisers has said that all we really need is about a six-week national lockdown and we can slow down the spread of this virus is totally and completely beyond reasonableness," said Reeves on Thursday at a press conference.

"The people of Mississippi can't just go home and shut down their small businesses … for six weeks, and just think that you can come back six weeks from now, flip a switch and everything's gonna be fine. It's not the way the economy works."

The statement came in response to a previous statement by Biden Covid advisor Dr. Michael Osterholm.

"We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers for losses to small companies to medium-sized companies, for city, states, county governments," said Osterholm. "We could do all of that, and if we did that, then we could lockdown for four to six weeks."

Reeves continued, noting to the legal basis for his statements:

"Under the Stafford Act, when you have emergencies—and this is clearly one of the longest-lasting emergencies in American history—that those emergencies have to be state managed, locally executed and federally supported. I don't believe that there is any Constitutional or statutory authority for any president to shut down Mississippi's economy," the governor stated. "We will certainly fight that, if it becomes necessary."

Joining Reeves in declaring that her state would refuse to be a part of a national lockdown is South Dakota's Governor, Kristi Noem. Her Communications Director, Ian Fury, said in a statement:

"It's a good day for freedom. Joe Biden realizes that the president doesn't have the authority to institute a mask mandate. For that matter, neither does Governor Noem, which is why she has provided her citizens with the full scope of the science and trusted them to make the best decisions for themselves and their loved-ones."