"Please be safe and if you are 12 or older — please protect yourself," read a tweet by Dr. Thomas Dobbs, Mississippi's health officer.
Seven children in Mississippi were hospitalized in intensive care with the coronavirus, Dobbs said. Two are on ventilators, he tweeted Tuesday.
In a Twitter post Monday, Dobbs said a "vast majority" of the hospitalizations and deaths are among people who were not vaccinated. According to NBC News' data, only 33.5 percent of the state's population is fully vaccinated.