Few cases reported as winter weather slows testing

The Arkansas Department of Health had not updated local COVID-19 numbers for Union County or Arkansas by presstime Saturday. Check eldoradonews.com for the latest update, or see the Feb. 21 digital edition of the News-Times.

Few new COVID-19 cases were reported this week in Union County or Arkansas as a whole, as the extreme winter weather seen throughout the state slowed testing significantly.

Locally, the Union County Health Unit was closed for much of the week, and the Medical Center of South Arkansas suspended drivethrough COVID testing. Between Monday and Friday, 14,460 COVID-19 test results returned to the ADH; in Union County, 69 total test results were reported in that period, 51 of which were negatives.

The ADH reported 18 new

COVID-19 cases in Union County between Monday and Friday this week. Active cases fell to their lowest level in months throughout the week and were down to 76 Friday, representing only 2.1% of all the cases that have been identified in the county. Ninety local residents met the criteria for being considered recovered from the virus between Monday and Friday.

The county did reach one milestone this week with the deaths of two local residents that resulted from COVID-19; 100 Union County residents have now died as a result of the virus. About 2.8% of the people who had contracted the virus locally by Friday had died as a result.

The ADH recommended this week that anyone whose appointment for their second dose of a COVID vaccine was postponed or cancelled reschedule the appointment for this week. According to the department, second doses of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines can be administered up to six weeks after the first dose.

Vaccination efforts did continue, however, and the ADH reported 20,110 doses were administered between Monday and Friday. In total, approximately 498,158 doses have been administered, while 752,525 doses have been allocated to the state.

According to Arkansas COVID, a University of Arkansas School of Journalism and Strategic Media program that has been tracking COVID-19 data in the state, 10.07% of Union County’s population had received a first vaccine dose as of Feb. 18, and 3.3% had received a second dose.

As the weather improves, cases could rise more in the next week, reversing a several weeks-long trend of fewer cases reported week-to-week. Danyelle McNeill, an ADH spokesperson, said the department hopes the winter weather seen throughout the state this week could lead to lower numbers of COVID cases, but recognized that circumstances caused by the weather could have caused the virus to spread.

“It’s difficult to predict how cases will increase or decrease next week,” she said in an email Friday. “It’s also difficult to predict how much of an impact being snowed in will have on case numbers. People may have stayed in more because of the weather, but spread is also possible in shelters or other places where people had to be together.”

She said testing will likely also increase in the next week, which could show an increase in cases.

“We have seen a decrease of new and active cases and hospitalizations for the past several weeks. This week case numbers are also lower because it’s far more difficult to get out for testing given the weather conditions,” she said. “As testing will likely increase, it is possible that we will see more cases (next week) than we had this week.”

As of Friday, 191,508 COVID-19 test results had returned to the ADH this month; the results that returned this week, from Monday to Friday, accounted for 7.6% of all that have returned this month.

In Union County, 2,135 results have been reported so far this month, and this week’s make up 3.2% of those.

Nationally, Johns Hopkins University reported 28,057,264 COVID-19 cases at 3:15 p.m. Saturday. Data wasn’t available then on the number of U.S. residents considered recovered from the virus or the number of active cases in the country. The country neared 500,000 COVID-related deaths, with 497,058 having been reported nationwide by Saturday afternoon, indicating a national COVID mortality rate of 1.8%.

Johns Hopkins reported 110,941,712 COVID-19 cases worldwide Saturday afternoon. There were 62,540,458 people considered recovered from the virus then, leaving 45,944,331 cases — 41.4% — active around the world. There had been 2,456,923 deaths attributable to the virus reported by Saturday afternoon, indicating a global COVID mortality rate of 2.2%.