Mississippi's top health officer declined to answer specific questions about ventilators, nursing homes and infected health care workers at a Wednesday press conference on coronavirus, because of concerns over privacy and that some of the information would cause people to "freak out."

Dr. Thomas Dobbs said the Department of Health knows how many ventilators the state has, which nursing homes have coronavirus outbreaks, and the number of infected health care workers — but refused to release that information.

Dobbs said among the most "worrisome" developments in Mississippi was a growth of cases in nursing homes. The state is now releasing the total number of nursing homes with outbreaks, but Dobbs pushed back on releasing the names of those nursing homes.

“Again, it’s a delicate balance between anonymity and public information," Dobbs said. "... There will be more information coming out."

Basic information, including the total number of coronavirus tests performed in Mississippi, remains unclear. Gov. Tate Reeves recently said that roughly 10,000 tests had been performed.

The Clarion Ledger has filed a public records request for the exact number of tests and other information.

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How many ventilators does Mississippi have?

The state of Mississippi is not releasing that information.

A 2010 study of the country's emergency preparedness estimated that Mississippi had 769 ventilators, which was one of the highest per capita of any state.

However, the Mississippi Department of Health is predicting it will need far more ventilators to combat the virus. Spokeswoman Liz Sharlot said last week that Mississippi has requested 2,100 ventilators from the federal government and had received none.

Greg Michel, executive director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said the state recently received its third shipment of supplies from the federal government. The shipments have been small, he said, and the latest one included hand sanitizer and masks. He did not mention ventilators.

At a rural hospital in north Mississippi, Dr. Kenneth Williams is still waiting to receive ventilators. His hospital, Alliance HealthCare in Holly Springs, has already been handling suspected and confirmed cases of coronavirus. Like many hospitals in Mississippi, it has no ventilator.

Williams said the hospital requested 10 through its local emergency management agency.

“These patients — they can crash on you in a minute," Williams said. “... So you have to be prepared to put them on a ventilator.”

According to the Department of Health, more than 30 percent of Mississippi's coronavirus patients are currently hospitalized.

Dobbs assured reporters Wednesday that Mississippi has an adequate number of ventilators — for now.

“On the ventilator piece, we have plenty for Mississippians today. It’s not today we’re worried about, it’s next week and week after next," Dobbs said. "We do a daily inventory of ventilators. We know how many we have available.”

Dobbs declined to release the number in the daily inventory.

“It changes so quickly, it’s not something we want to publish," Dobbs said. "And it’s also something people would freak out if they were looking and seeing, ‘Oh, it’s gone up 10 percent or down 10 percent.’ It’s such a dynamic number that we don’t post it.”

When asked if he could give a general number of ventilators, Dobbs did not directly answer the question.

“We are below average utilization for this time of year," he said. "We have more ventilators and ICU beds than we normally do available.”

Officials at the press conference said there are ways to increase the number of ventilators through modifications to some machines and by taking ventilators from operating rooms that are not currently in use.

Dobbs said he hoped that Mississippi could survive the pandemic without needing additional ventilators.

“If we can bend the curve down hard, maybe we’ll never need more,” Dobbs said.

How much data is Mississippi releasing?

The Mississippi Department of Health publishes the number of confirmed cases, deaths, patients requiring hospitalization and total number of long-term care facilities with outbreaks, as well as a breakdown of cases by age range.

Other states, such as Louisiana, publish more data.

Louisiana publishes the number of tests done by the state lab and commercial labs. Mississippi only publishes the number of tests done by the state lab.

Louisiana publishes the number of coronavirus patients who are hospitalized and how many of those people are on ventilators. Mississippi publishes some data on the rate of hospitalization for coronavirus patients, but nothing on ventilators.

Louisiana publishes the name of every long-term care facility with an outbreak of coronavirus. Mississippi publishes the counties that have outbreaks at long-term care facilities.

Contact Giacomo "Jack" Bologna at 601-961-7282 or gbologna@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @gbolognaCL.