Since March of 2020, more than 17 thousand members of the National Guard were mobilized to assist in the coronavirus response in Mississippi. At the peak of operations, 12 thousand guard members were deployed at a single time. But an emergency declaration from the governor is ending, and the guard ended pandemic operations last week. Lt. Colonel Jeremy Parker is Commander of the COVID-19 Task Force at the Mississippi National Guard. He says their mission began with distributing protective equipment to hospitals, transitioning into coronavirus testing, and eventually vaccinations.
“Well, we are probably most proud of the vaccine mission,” says Lt. Colonel Parker. “The Mississippi National Guard was able to administer over 765,000 doses, you know, life-saving medicine to Mississippians. So we know that that effort has saved lives.”
Some members of the Mississippi National Guard were placed on specialized missions related to their professional education and work experience. Lt. Colonel Parker says those with degrees in biology and other medical fields were able to assist the Department of Health with data entry and analysis.
He says “There was a very big workload tracking cases and entering positive case information. We provided some support or staff for the emergency operations section for the Mississippi State Department of Health. We did actually engage folks in a number of different ways in this mission.”
Guardsmen and women across the state were honored last week at several galas, and those who are not employed full time by the National Guard are returning to their civilian jobs.
