Reeves said in a thread on Twitter that “This extension will ease the process of marshalling additional resources for our response,” and “allow our system of care to continue to transfer patients to hospitals where treatment is available, ensure expanded access to telemedicine, and will keep options open for use of the great men and women of the MS National Guard.”

He then told Mississippi residents that nothing will be locked down or mandated in the process.

“I didn’t make this decision without extensive consideration of all factors but I am convinced this action is the best path forward given the ever-changing environment we currently face,” he wrote. “Stay safe Mississippi & God Bless!”

The state reported 4,412 new cases and 20 deaths on Thursday, the highest number of cases in a single day recorded since the pandemic began.

According to data compiled by the Washington Post, Mississippi is averaging nearly 2,700 new COVID-19 cases a day in the past week—a 54 percent spike in the past seven days.

Governor Reeves told WLOX that he would not mandate masks in school districts.

“The reality is there is an opportunity for them to recognize how bad the cases are, how many vaccinated they have in their school among kids and employees, and they can make that decision on the local level,” said Reeves.

Just last month, Reeves stated that he believed the push for masks to be mandated in all indoor facilities recommended by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were “silly” and “foolish.”

“It is harmful,” he said in a speech reported by WLBT. “It reeks of political panic, so it’s to appear they are in control. It has nothing… Let me say that again; it has nothing to do with rational science.”

The primary goal of extending the emergency order is to make sure resources are available for Mississippi’s hospitals, said Reeves.

According to the Washington Post, More than 1,500 people in the state are hospitalized, and nearly 400 ICU beds are filled with infected patients as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to ravage all states in the U.S.

On Wednesday, the University of Mississippi Medical Center began preparing a floor of one of its garages to serve as a 50-bed field hospital to treat inpatient and outpatient COVID-19 patients reported the Clarion-Ledger.

And while hospitalizations continue to climb, vaccination rates in the state are one of the lowest in the country. Mississippi’s fully vaccinated rate has been slowly climbing, only having reached 33 percent.

Governor Reeves has encouraged residents of Mississippi to get fully vaccinated. “We didn’t know what we didn’t know back then [in March],” he told WLOX. “What we do know today is that an individual that gets the vaccine is much less likely to get the virus and much less likely to spread the virus.”

Newsweek reached out to the Mississippi State Department of Health for additional comment but did not hear back in time for publication.