Republican Governor Says COVID In Kids Is Basically ‘The Sniffles’

Mississippi's Republican governor Tate Reeves has been largely overlooked in the race to the bottom of Republican governors in the South, but he managed to come roaring into the race with his recent claim that kids under the age of 12 basically just get "the sniffles" when they get COVID. This is obviously false, and the comment was made less than a day before an 8th grader in the state died from the virus. Farron Cousins discusses this careless and dangerous comment from Reeves.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Mississippi's Republican governor Tate Reeves hasn't really been discussed as one of the horrible Southern governors handling COVID. Uh, but just a couple of days ago, Mr. Reeves decided to come out and put his name in the running as one of the absolute worst Republican governors in their handling of the pandemic. Mr. Reeve came out and made this comment. He said, and if you look at those individuals under the age of 12, what you find is that it is very rare that kids under the age of 12, have anything other than the sniffles, does it happen from time to time? Sure. It does

Sniffles less than a day

After Mr. Reeves made this comment. And of course, by the way, during this little press conference where he made this comment, his, um, the state health director had to tell him, yeah, we've had four kids

Die of COVID. Uh, so far less than a day after he made these comments in eighth grader in

The state of Mississippi died from COVID.

Now that's tragically ironic

That the day after this man says, oh, it's basically the sniffles in kids. And here's the thing Mr. Reeves has not done what some of his fellow Republican governors have done, which is sign a ban on mask mandates, but he's made it clear, including during this press conference that he will not

Be signing a mask mandate. He will not mandate that children

Going to school have to wear face

Coverings even after one of them died.

And now counties, of course, after the death have said, you're wearing masks. This is now mandatory. And so far, you know, to his credit Reeves is not stepping in and saying, no, you can't do that. So I, I guess that's a win, you know, it's a win for everybody except for the family that has to bury their child.

But folks, this Delta

Variant, as we are seeing is far worse for children

Than the original COVID. We

Have a record number of children in the United States hospitalized with COVID right now, higher numbers than we've ever seen. And in fact, in all age groups,

The number

Of COVID hospitalizations is increasing. And as long as we continue to let this virus stay out there to continue to mutate, it's going to get worse. It's going to affect everyone. We have seen an 11 month old child die from COVID. We've had five-year-olds die from COVID. We've had elementary schoolers, middle schoolers, high schoolers, all die from COVID all over this country. So stop trying to downplay

It. The numbers don't lie,

Which is ironic, of course, because Reeves' considers himself a numbers guy,

But you're ignoring all of the numbers. If we mask up our children, what's the worst that's going to happen. If we don't mask them up, what's the worst that's going to happen. COVID is going to spread. Even if the masks were ineffective, the children

Do not suffer any harm from wearing them. Regardless of what these Republican idiots out there are claiming I've looked around. There's no instances of a child being hospitalized because their oxygen levels dropped because they were wearing a mask

Hasn't happened. So even if we mask up everybody, there is no downside. There is however, a massive downside.

If we do not mask up everybody, those are some pretty simple numbers. That's a simple equation for you there, Mr. Reeves, and all of the other idiot, Republican governors who do not want to put mask mandates in place.

We know

What happens when you put large groups of people together who are not wearing any kind of face coverings in enclosed indoor areas. We've been dealing with this for 18 months. Now we know how to handle this. We know what we could and should do. We're making the conscious choices while Republican governors are to not do anything about it.

No more dead children, no more dead. Anyone from this pandemic is where we should be right now, but we're not. And it's because of people like Mr. Reeves, there are far

Too many Tate Reeves across this country that are helping to prolong this pandemic.