Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
State health worker dies of virus’s illness
The first health care worker to die as a result of the coronavirus in Arkansas was reported Sunday, while the number of confirmed positive cases at the Cummins Unit prison rose by 118 and Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced 1,990 inmates across the state are being reviewed for release.
The health care worker who died had worked at Jefferson Regional Hospital and was associated with the initial cluster of cases reported there, Dr. Nathaniel Smith, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Health, said at a briefing at the state Capitol in Little Rock.
“I believe that is our first front-line health care worker to have passed away from covid-19 in the state,” he said.
A nursing home patient has also died from the illness, bringing the total number of coronavirus-related deaths to 39. Both the health care worker and the nursing home patient were under 65 years old, Smith said.
The total number of coronavirus cases reported in the state rose to 1,781, an increase of just 42 since Saturday afternoon, the health secretary said. It was just four more than the state’s 11 p.m. update Saturday night.
Hutchinson said the new cases from the general population show a more accurate view of where the state
is currently when it comes to the pandemic. He said he will be using a separate line in graphs to show the current situation at the Cummins Unit.
PRISON
Sunday’s number of infections, Hutchinson said, did not include the 348 positive cases among inmates at the Cummins Unit, 118 more than reported on Saturday.
Hutchinson said that 974 tests of inmates at the unit had been conducted over the course of two days. A total of 634 test results had been received, and three inmates had been hospitalized.
“The number we have coming out of Cummins dwarfs what we are having statewide,” he said.
Hutchinson said to date the state has tested around 1,400 inmates within the Cummins Maximum Security Facility.
“That is an extraordinary number of inmates,” Hutchinson said.
The governor said the state is utilizing the American Esoteric Laboratories in Memphis for the testing.
“We had a quick turnaround with them,” Hutchinson said. “To illustrate… on Friday we did 139 tests, [Saturday] night we did 835 tests. So in a two-day total we did 974 tests of those in Cummins Correctional Institution.”
State Division of Correction Director Dexter Payne said inmates who haven’t yet been tested are housed in a modular unit outside the facility, and none there were symptomatic, he said.
“We don’t plan on testing those unless we do get some that are symptomatic,” he said.
At the unit, a total of 16 staff members have been tested. Six of those have tested positive, Payne said.
Hutchinson said the Cummins Unit has been segregated into eight positive barracks and seven negative barracks. He said almost all of the positive inmates are asymptomatic.
Payne said the staff working in the positive barracks are part of the emergency response team who have safety equipment and are trained to deal with pandemics.
Hutchinson also said 271 inmates who were being held under a 90-day sanction program as a result of their parole supervision have been released from county jails across the state. He said this was a “compassionate release” to reduce crowding in county jails and to relieve the intake into their prison system.
The state Parole Board and the Department of Corrections have also identified 1,990 inmates who will be screened from a public safety standpoint to determine how many can be released under the current circumstances, Hutchinson said.
To be considered for release, inmates must be currently held for nonviolent offenses and must not be charged with any sex offenses, the governor said. The inmates must also be due for release within the next six months.
“The reason this is important is that right now we have an outbreak in the Cummins Unit, but we want to look at the prisons more broadly that if we have positive cases or in an outbreak in another unit we want to have sufficient space available so we can have the inmates that are tested positive isolated,” he said. “We have to have some empty spaces for that.”
Payne said the Parole Board is also going to review those who have received oneyear denials and those inmates with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to see if there’s anything that can be done to help. He said if an inmate who is scheduled for release tests positive they will be still be held at the prison.
MEDICAL
Smith said of the 1,781 positive cases reported Saturday afternoon, 1,020 of them were still active. He also said 88 patients remain hospitalized. As of Sunday, 25 patients remained on ventilators, up from 23.
The top underlying conditions are diabetes, heart disease and chronic lung disease, the doctor said.
Smith also said of the total cases 60% are white, 29% black and 4% Hispanic. He said only 0.2% are Pacific Islanders, but he acknowledged many of the state’s Marshallese population write in Marshall Islands rather than putting down Pacific Islanders.
“I am not sure if we have captured all the Pacific Islanders there, but we are working very closely with our Marshallese community to make sure we identify all cases and do appropriate contact tracing,” Smith said.
Smith said the status of antibody testing is important but it won’t be for diagnosing acute illness. He said the test will help them know who might have been affected asymptomatically or it can be used to identify people who might be good plasma donors.
Smith said what the state primarily needs is PCR tests to diagnose acute infections. He said there are a number of antibody tests that are on the market, but only a handful have received emergency use authorization from the FDA.
UAMS has developed its own antibody test and is in the process of validating that test as well, Smith said.
One of the common misconceptions is that having an antibody test can indicate whether a person is immune to covid-19, Smith said. But, he added, medical professionals don’t know that for a fact.
“Some antibodies are protected and some aren’t,” he said. “For example we test for HIV using an antibody test but that antibody is not protected. We still have a lot to learn.”
Sunday’s number of infections, Hutchinson said, did not include the 348 positive cases among inmates at the Cummins Unit, 118 more than reported on Saturday.