Governor urges weekend vaccinations

After a week of coronavirus vaccination clinics scuttled by snow, Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Friday urged pharmacies and hospitals to start giving shots again this weekend.

“It is critical to get our vaccines out as quickly as possible, and we have to catch up on the missed appointments and slow vaccine distribution over the last week,” the Republican governor said in a news release.

He said it was important to make progress in vaccinating Arkansans age 70 and older so the state can expand eligibility to other groups.

Health care workers, first responders and residents and workers at long-term care facilities fall under Phase 1-A of the state’s vaccination plan and were the first to receive the vaccine.

Last month, the state made the shots available to Arkansans 70 and older and employees of schools and child care centers, all of whom fall under Phase 1-B of the plan.

Frontline essential workers, such as employees of grocery stores and factories, also fall under 1-B but are not yet eligible for the vaccine.

Hutchinson has said he hopes to expand the groups who are eligible by March 1.

“We need to move to other categories of 1-B, and the sooner we get more of our 70+ vaccinated then the sooner we will be able to add more Arkansans to the eligible list,” he said Friday.

“If you are a pharmacy with available vaccines, then I am asking you to schedule as many appointments as possible this weekend. If you are in an eligible category, then please make your appointment.”

Hutchinson issued the plea as the state’s count of coronavirus cases rose by just 268 during a slowdown in testing caused by the cold, snowy weather.

The number of people hospitalized with covid-19 in Arkansas rose Friday for the second day in a row.

After rising by 23 on Thursday, it rose Friday by five, to 630.

The death toll from the virus, as tracked by the state Department of Health, rose by 13, to 5,336.

John Vinson, chief executive officer of the Arkansas Pharmacists Association, said he supported Hutchinson’s request “for all COVID-19 vaccinating pharmacies to ramp up appointments this week.”

“Through survey data, our network of community pharmacies are reporting to the Arkansas Pharmacists Association that they have adequate capacity to double or triple their appointment slots over the next two weeks to reschedule appointments from this week, to schedule new appointments for the future and to respond to the increase in the vaccine supply for Arkansas,” Vinson said in the release.

In an interview, Vinson said many pharmacies were already planning clinics this weekend. He said he expects pharmacies to be caught up with the appointments by March 1.

Health Secretary Jose Romero said the spread of more-contagious coronavirus variants adds urgency to the need to catch up on the delayed vaccinations.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hadn’t reported identifying any of the variants in Arkansas as of Friday.

“The faster we can all get vaccinated, the faster we can protect our population and hold off the variant strains that are circulating around the world and in the U.S.,” Romero said in the release.

“Please join us in making up your appointment this weekend if you had to delay it because of the weather.”

While the snow was melting Friday, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in North Little Rock said it will remain on roads for a few days.

Snow and slush were expected to “turn into sheets of ice” this morning, the weather service warned.

“The morning will be the most dangerous,” meteorologist Lance Pyle said.

This afternoon, he said, the roads will probably be better, although side roads are likely to remain covered in snow unless they’ve been plowed.

Motorists are “going to have to be careful throughout the day,” Pyle said.

He said it probably will be Monday or Tuesday before all the roads are clear. In the meantime, he said drivers should allow extra time to reach their destinations.

VACCINATIONS RESUME

After being closed from Monday through Friday, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ public vaccination clinic, at the Freeway Medical Tower in Little Rock, was set to reopen today, spokeswoman Leslie Taylor said.

It was to be open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, she said.

“I think we have more than 100 scheduled for both days at this point, but they were still making more appointments” as of Friday morning, Taylor said.

She said the clinic, which had already expanded to include weekend hours, can administer shots to as many as 300 people a day.

The university had planned to move the clinic to a larger space, the Centre at University Park on 12th Street in Little Rock, today, but the weather pushed the move to Thursday. In the new space, the clinic will be able to administer 1,000 shots a day, Taylor has said.

“We may extend some hours or book more appointments when we move to the new clinic,” Taylor said. “Right now, we’re just rescheduling those people” who had appointments this week, she said.

A Baptist Health vaccination clinic in Little Rock reopened Friday after being closed Wednesday and Thursday.

Starting Monday, the health system has clinics for Arkansans 70 and older planned in Little Rock, North Little Rock, Conway, Fort Smith, Malvern and Arkadelphia, spokeswoman Cara Wade said by email.

“In fact, we’ve expanded our vaccine clinic hours next week to accommodate approximately 5,000 doses of COVID vaccine,” Wade said.

Appointments must be made through an online MyChart account. Information on creating an account is posted on the health system’s website at baptist-health.com/covid-19-vaccine.

The Northwest Arkansas Council, a business group that includes Walmart, Tyson Foods and J.B Hunt, said it is planning an event in Benton County for Arkansans 70 and older.

State Epidemiologist Jennifer Dillaha said last week that the group had been planning to administer 3,000 doses at an event Friday of this week.

“Weather delayed our initial plans, but we are regrouping and expect to announce more details next week,” the council said in a statement.

“We are coordinating with the Arkansas Department of Health, the region’s health care providers, council member companies and others to organize this community event. We hope the model used for this event can be a playbook for other underserved areas throughout the state.”

On his schedule of public appearances planned for

next week, Hutchinson listed an “NWA Mass Vaccination Clinic” on Friday at J.B. Hunt’s headquarters in Lowell.

Philip Way, co-owner of Remedy Drug in Little Rock, said his pharmacy is holding a vaccination clinic Sunday at St. James United Methodist Church.

“They have had crews clearing the parking lots & sidewalks, and are set to host us in their CLC building (gym) as we give nearly 200 shots (mostly second doses) of Covid vaccine,” Way said in an email.

“Many of these 1B recipients could not get out this week when the roads were at their worst.”

COMMUNITY CLINIC

Meanwhile, an association representing federally funded community health centers in Arkansas said Friday that it hasn’t been determined when Community Clinic, a health center in Springdale, will receive its first vaccine doses as part of a federal initiative.

Initially, the clinic is expected to receive 500 doses a week, although that amount is expected to increase over time, the Community Health Centers of Arkansas said in a news release.

President Joe Biden’s administration announced last week that it would begin sending vaccine doses directly to centers.

According to a White House fact sheet, the vaccinations at the health centers will be “phased in, with the first centers able to start ordering vaccines” as early as this week.

“The initial phase will include at least one Community Health Center in each state, expanding to 250 centers in the coming weeks,” the fact sheet says.

Community Health Centers of Arkansas said Community Clinic serves almost 40,000 patients a year, more than half of whom are Hispanic and 3,000 of whom are Marshallese.

“Serving such a significant number of patients who lack English language proficiency was an important criteria for the federal Health Resources Services Administration in choosing the first groups of CHCs for the initiative,” the association said in the release.

“Community Clinic’s infrastructure and commitment to meeting distribution protocols also were important to HRSA.”

“Our mission is to reach people who may not feel comfortable going to a pharmacy or hospital and may lack access,” Judd Semingson, chief executive officer of Community Clinic, said in the release.

“Thankfully, our patients trust us. However, there are still many in our communities who are scared, don’t know what to do about COVID-19 and have questions about the vaccines. We are well prepared and excited to help the state in this fight against the pandemic.”

DOSES REPORTED

According to the Health Department, pharmacies and other providers participating in the vaccination effort coordinated by the state had received 691,525 doses as of Friday morning, a number that hadn’t changed from a day earlier.

The doses the providers reported having administered rose by 3,224, to 469,440.

In addition, the Health Department said Walmart, Walgreens and CVS had administered 28,718 doses, an increase of 1,158 from a day earlier.

Walgreens and CVS were allocated 49,400 doses of the Moderna vaccine for residents and workers in Arkansas longterm care facilities as part of a federal program.

They have since made some of the doses available to eligible members of the broader public after it was discovered that they had more than they needed to cover the facilities.

Walmart was allocated 11,600 doses last week for vaccinations that began at 58 stores in the state as part of a different federal program.

During the seven-day span ending Friday, providers participating in the state and federal programs reported administering 45,950 doses, or an average of about 6,564 a day.

That was down by more than 40% from the previous week, when 81,946 doses, or about 11,707 doses a day, were administered.

TESTING DOWN

Despite the increases Thursday and Friday, the number of patients hospitalized with covid-19 remained less than half the level it reached in early January and was eight fewer than the number hospitalized as of Tuesday.

The number of covid-19 patients on ventilators rose by one, to 108, while the number in intensive care as of 2 p.m. fell by four, to 237.

Dillaha said she remained concerned that the increase in hospitalized patients could be the result of people putting off care during this week’s weather.

The Health Department reported that it had received the results of 2,733 polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests and antigen tests of Arkansans that were performed Thursday.

That was less than a third of the number the department reported having received a week earlier.

With testing low, Dillaha said, it’s hard to interpret the increase in cases, which was almost 300 fewer than the number of cases added the previous Friday.

“We may see a bump if we see a lot of people getting tested once they’re able to travel, but I’m hoping the overall trend will stay downward,” Dillaha said. “That seems to be what’s happening in the rest of the country.”

ACTIVE CASES FALL

The cases added to state tallies Friday included 180 that were confirmed through PCR tests.

The other 88 were “probable” cases, which include those identified through antigen tests.

The cumulative count of cases rose to 314,713.

That comprised 249,176 confirmed cases and 65,537 probable ones.

The number of cases that were considered active fell by 845, to 6,478, as 1,100 Arkansans were newly classified as having recovered.

Washington County was listed as having the largest number of new cases, 42, followed by Benton County, which had 24; Pulaski County, which had 15; White County, which had 13; and Pope County, which had 12.

The state death toll rose by 11, to 4,287, among confirmed cases and by two, to 1,049, among probable cases.

Among nursing-home and assisted-living facility residents, the state count of virus deaths rose by four, to 2,006.

The number of people who have ever been hospitalized in the state with covid-19 rose by 31, to 14,500.

The number of state virus patients who have ever been on a ventilator rose by one, to 1,495.