Reports show drop in state’s hospital cases

Fall is 3rd in row , but virus’s toll climbing — day’s rise 47

The downward trend in new coronavirus cases in Arkansas continued Friday as the number of people hospitalized with the virus fell for the third day in a row.

But the number of newly reported deaths remained high, with the toll rising Friday by 47, to 4,831.

The state’s count of cases rose by 1,707. That was a smaller increase than the one the day before and on the previous Friday, Jan. 22.

The number of people hospitalized in the state with covid-19 fell by 45, to 951.

“Today we saw a decrease of over 450 new cases from this time last week,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson said in a statement.

“We have also distributed over 84,000 doses of vaccine in the past week. With a decline in hospitalizations, we remind ourselves that watching our distance and wearing a mask does make a difference. Please keep the guidelines in mind as we go into the weekend.”

Also on Friday, state Epidemiologist Jennifer Dillaha said an increase in the amount of Moderna vaccine Arkansas will be getting next week caused a reshuffling of the places where the state directed its doses to be shipped compared with previous weeks.

Some drugstores that have received the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech from hospitals or other pharmacies under a “hub and spoke” model will be getting direct shipments of the Moderna vaccine.

Meanwhile, more of the Pfizer doses will go to hospitals, which will be more involved in the effort to vaccinate Arkansans age 70 and older and employees of elementary and secondary schools, child care centers and higher-education institutions than in previous weeks.

“They’ll be reaching out and vaccinating some of their patients through their clinics,” and some will be holding vaccination events, Dillaha said.

The state also directed extra doses of the Moderna vaccine to go to Jefferson and Crittenden counties, where a lower percentage of residents have been vaccinated compared with other counties, Dillaha said.

Health Department spokesman Gavin Lesnick also said Friday that some vaccine doses are still expected to become available to eligible members of the public at certain CVS drugstores next week, but the doses likely won’t be available Monday, as state officials announced earlier this week.

The drop in hospitalizations on Friday moved that number to its lowest level since Nov. 21.

Despite that decrease, however, the number of the patients on ventilators rose by one, to 144.

The number of covid-19 patients in intensive-care units fell by eight, to 299.

Dillaha said 46 of the deaths reported Friday happened within the past month, and the one other occurred earlier in December.

VACCINE PLANS

President Joe Biden announced this week that his administration would be boosting the amount of vaccine doses going out to the states each week by 16% for the next three weeks.

For Arkansas, that translated to an allocation for next week of enough vaccine to provide the initial shots to 43,025 people, up from 37,125 this week.

The amount of Pfizer vaccine the state will receive — 18,525 initial doses — stayed the same, but its allocation of initial Moderna doses increased from 18,600 this week to 24,500 next week.

Those doses are in addition to ones the state receives to provide booster shots to people who received their initial shots earlier.

The two vaccines are believed to have similar effectiveness, but Moderna’s is easier to handle.

It can be stored at normal freezer temperatures and comes in minimum shipment sizes of 100 doses.

Pfizer’s meanwhile, must be stored at minus-94 degrees Fahrenheit and comes in minimum shipments of one tray, which holds 975 doses.

Under the state’s hub-andspoke system, pharmacies and hospitals with ultracold freezers have received shipments of the Pfizer vaccine and then distributed it to other pharmacies to be administered to patients.

Some pharmacies will continue to receive the Pfizer vaccine under that model next week, while others will receive direct shipments of the Moderna vaccine, Dillaha said.

Outside of the hub-andspoke system, the state also directed shipments of 975 doses each of the Pfizer vaccine to 12 hospitals to vaccinate eligible Arkansans.

Those hospitals include CHI St. Vincent Infirmary in Little Rock and CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs, which last week shut down community vaccination clinics after exhausting their supply in two days and didn’t receive any additional initial doses this week.

The other hospitals on the list are Conway Regional Medical Center; Northwest Medical Center-Springdale; North Arkansas Regional Medical Center in Harrison; Mercy Hospital Fort Smith; NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jonesboro; Baptist Health Medical Center-Conway; Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home; Arkansas Heart Hospital in Little Rock; St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro; and Baptist Health Medical Center-North Little Rock.

“When you transfer it out, you have to use it within five days, so it’s more convenient for a hospital to do it because it’s just right there and they can take out the number of doses they need,” Dillaha said.

Northwest Medical Center-Bentonville, Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers, Baptist Health-Fort Smith and Unity HealthWhite County Medical Center in Searcy, which serve as distribution hubs for the Pfizer vaccine, will continue to receive doses.

In all, Dillaha said the state was allowed to order 19 trays of the Pfizer vaccine, but had requests for 53.

“So not everyone got what they wanted, of course,” she said.

Also, Doctor’s Orders Pharmacy in Pine Bluff, a Pfizer hub in Jefferson County, will get two trays of the Pfizer vaccine, up from the one it received this week.

And pharmacies and other providers in Crittenden County will receive 900 doses of the Moderna vaccine, up from the 600 they received this week.

Those two counties were chosen to receive the extra doses because less than 4% of their residents have been vaccinated, Dillaha said.

Compared with other counties of similar size, Jefferson and Crittenden didn’t have as many residents who were eligible for the shots under the first phase of the vaccination plan because they don’t have as many hospital employees, she said.

She said state officials looked at the percentage of residents who had been vaccinated in each county and “tried to even them out, or at least raise them all up to at least 4%.”

JUDGES, ATTORNEYS PRIORITIZED

People age 70 and older and school and child care employees all fall under Phase 1-B of the vaccination plan and officially became eligible for the shots on Jan. 18.

Front-line “essential workers,” such as factory and grocery workers, also fall under Phase 1-B but won’t be able to get the vaccine until later.

In a letter this week, Arkansas Chief Justice Dan Kemp said circuit judges handling criminal and juvenile dockets — along with their staff members and certain attorneys — will qualify under that category, which includes “essential government workers.”

“As an independent branch of government, it is the duty of the Supreme Court of Arkansas to define which judicial positions are essential, and where each position should place in the vaccine priority schedule,” Kemp said in the letter, a copy of which was provided to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Jury trials in Arkansas currently are suspended until at least Feb. 28 by order of the Supreme Court, while other court proceedings may continue either in person or remotely.

Kemp’s letter provided a list of court personnel that he said will be included among essential government workers when the state opens vaccinations to the group.

That group will include circuit judges and their staff members who oversee criminal and juvenile dockets; attorneys with scheduled in-person appearances for criminal and juvenile matters; district judges and their staff members; prosecutors, public defenders and their staff members; judges, court administrators and court reporters over age 65 with at least one chronic medical condition; circuit and county clerks and their staff members; the clerk of the Supreme Court and staff members; jury panel members and others.

Judges and court staff members not included in the “essential government workers” section of Phase 1-B will become eligible for the vaccine during Phase 1-C along with any licensed attorney over age 65.

Phase 1-C, which includes other types of essential workers, anyone over the age of 65 and people with chronic health conditions putting them at increased risk of complications from covid-19, is estimated to begin in April.

Kemp’s letter was sent to members of the judiciary Wednesday, one day after a letter was sent from Arkansas Bar Association President Paul W. Keith to Hutchinson, requesting that attorneys and court personnel be included “in the current distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.”

“By order of the Arkansas Supreme Court, Arkansas’ courts remain open for business,” Keith wrote. “Regardless of how court proceedings are being conducted, lawyers must meet with their clients, witnesses and with court personnel.”

A spokeswoman for Hutchinson declined to comment on the Bar Association letter Thursday.

Keith said Friday that the basis for his letter was guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, however, recommended that court and other legal services be included in Phase 1-C of the vaccination schedule.

Keith said he had not received a response to his letter from the governor as of Friday evening.

Dillaha said whether legal professionals would be considered front-line essential workers “depends on their function.”

“We’re kind of still in the middle or ironing all that out, so I can’t really be specific until we finish that process, which will still be a few more days,” she said. “I’ll be working on it over the weekend.”

DOSES ADMINISTERED

As of Friday morning, pharmacies and other providers in the state reported having received 470,400 doses, up 200 doses from what they had received as of a day earlier.

They reported having administered 270,332 of those, up 15,058 from the number reported Thursday.

In addition, Walgreens and CVS reported having administered 14,596 doses, an increase of 2,188 from the total a day earlier.

The two pharmacy chains were allocated 49,400 doses of the Moderna vaccine for residents and workers in Arkansas long-term-care facilities as part of a federal program.

Walgreens, however, began making the shots available to eligible members of the broader public on Monday after it was discovered that the companies had more than they needed to cover the facilities.

Col. Robert Ator, who is coordinating Arkansas’ vaccination effort, said this week that he expected 3,000 shots to be available to eligible Arkansans at certain CVS locations starting Monday, although Lesnick said Friday that it would likely happen later in the week.

He said officials were still working to finalize the amount of doses that would be redistributed from state pharmacies that also received more than they needed.

The state already has redistributed 13,000 doses that originally went to those pharmacies. The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences got 8,000 of those and 5,000 went to the Baptist Health system.

The number of doses reported to have been delivered and administered includes some booster shots.

The actual number of shots given is higher than the Health Department’s figures because providers have three days to report the doses they administer. On its website, the CDC reported that 221,552 Arkansans had received at least one dose, an increase of 12,107 from the number reported two days earlier.

The number as of Friday represented 7.3% of the state’s population. That was the 11th-highest percentage of residents who had received at least one dose among the states and District of Columbia.

The CDC also listed 45,918 Arkansans as having received both doses, an increase of 5,008 from the number listed Wednesday.

Among the states and Washington, D.C., Arkansas ranked 21st on that measure, with 1.5% of its residents having received both doses.

Nationally, 7% of people had received at least one dose and 1.5% had received two doses as of Friday.

ACTIVE CASES FALL

The cases added to the state’s tallies on Friday included 1,218 that were confirmed through polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests.

The other 489 were “probable” cases, which include those identified through less-sensitive antigen tests.

The state cumulative count of cases rose to 292,563.

That comprised 233,556 confirmed cases and 59,007 probable ones.

The number of cases that were considered active fell by 221, to 17,326, as 1,881 Arkansans were newly classified as having recovered.

Pulaski County had the most new cases, 271, followed by Benton County, which had 171; Washington County, which had 147; Sebastian County, which had 89; and Faulkner County, which had 74.

Although the Health Department didn’t report an increase in its tally of cases among prison and jail inmates, the Department of Corrections logged four new cases.

Corrections Department spokeswoman Cindy Murphy said the number of cases among inmates rose by three, to 128, at the Northeast Arkansas Community Correction Center in Osceola and by one, to 161, at the Central Arkansas Community Correction Center in Little Rock.

Of the cases at those prisons, 35 at the Osceola lockup and two at the Little Rock facility were active as of Friday.

Statewide, the average number of cases added over a rolling seven-day period fell Friday by 65, to 1,597.

The death toll rose by 23, to 3,887, among confirmed cases and by 24, to 944, among probable cases.

Among nursing home and assisted-living facility residents, the count of virus deaths rose by 12, to 1,872.

The number of people who have ever been hospitalized with the virus rose by 47, to 13,552.

The number of the state’s virus patients who have ever been on a ventilator rose by six, to 1,420.

“As an independent branch of government, it is the duty of the Supreme Court of Arkansas to define which judicial positions are essential, and where each position should place in the vaccine priority schedule,” Kemp said in the letter, a copy of which was provided to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.