Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Darker forecast a wake-up call, governor says
State officials raise estimate of expected hospitalizations
forecasting hundreds more deaths in Arkansas because of the coronavirus over the next month and a half are a “wake-up call” about the seriousness of the virus and highlight the need to take precautions to avoid spreading it, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Wednesday.
He spoke as the state’s count of virus cases grew by more than 700 for the second straight day, exceeding the average increase over the past two weeks of 685 cases a day.
The state’s count of virus deaths grew by seven, to 1,157.
Hutchinson referred to projections by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, released Tuesday, that showed a slightly worsened outlook for hospitalizations that researchers attributed to the reopening of schools.
The latest forecast predicts that hospitalizations will peak at 2,090 in late December under a moderate scenario, up from the 1,972 predicted in a report earlier this month. Fewer than 400 were hospitalized as of Wednesday.
Hutchinson said the state can “beat those kinds of projections” if Arkansans follow public health guidelines.
“The good news is that we have adequate hospital space but we don’t want people to get ill,” Hutchinson said. “We don’t want to have that increase in cases.
“So that should drive us all to remember how important the fundamental principals of individual responsibility are in reducing that spread of covid-19.”
The 722 cases added to the Department of Health’s online dashboard of coronavirus information on Wednesday afternoon included 606 that were confirmed through molecular tests and 116 “probable” cases, which include those diagnosed through less-sensitive antigen tests.
Earlier Wednesday, the Health Department also added the deaths of 140 Arkansans classified as probable cases to the dashboard.
In addition to people whose infections are diagnosed with antigen tests, probable cases include people whose death certificates list covid-19 as a contributing factor even though they were never tested.
Hutchinson announced Tuesday that the state would be adding the deaths of 139 probable cases to the state’s count.
Those had not been added to the dashboard on Tuesday evening. By Wednesday morning, however, the site’s count of deaths among probable cases had grown from seven to 147.
Asked why the number increased by 140, instead of 139, Health Department spokeswoman Danyelle McNeill said in an email, “Another probable death was discovered and therefore, added.”
Later Wednesday, the site’s count of deaths among confirmed cases increased by seven, to 1,010.
Compared with a day earlier, the number of people hospitalized with covid-19 fell by two, to 387, despite 38 patients who were newly admitted.
The number of patients on ventilators fell by three, to 65.
The number of people who have ever been hospitalized with covid-19 in the state rose to 4,840, while the number who have ever been on a ventilator rose by 10, to 616.
The number of confirmed or probable cases in the state that were considered active fell by 90, to 5,911, as 805 Arkansans were newly classified as having recovered.
FORECAST CONCERNS
Addressing reporters from the University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville, Hutchinson noted that UAMS’ forecast for the state is still an improvement from what it predicted in a report on June 19.
That report projected that the virus’ spread would peak in late September at about 18,000 new cases per day.
“We’re not having that, and so really if you put it back in perspective, it shows some of the success that we’ve had,” Hutchinson said.
He also found a bright spot in the latest edition of a weekly report from the White House coronavirus task force.
While still classifying Arkansas as being in the “red zone” for its growth in cases, the report, dated Sunday, noted a drop in the number of new cases added each day.
In the week ending Friday, the state’s count of confirmed cases rose by 3,736, down from 4,596 the previous week, according to the report.
Hutchinson called the UAMS projections and White House report reminders “that we’ve made progress, but we have more work to do, and the challenge, the battle, the fight is not yet finished.”
He said the growth of the state’s cases seems to have plateaued at a rate of several hundred new cases a day.
“The encouraging thing is that it shows that it’s not out of control, because if it was out of control, you’d be going upward on a regular basis,” he said. “But it is settling at too high of a number, and so I would like to see that number reduced.
“That’s too high of a number to settle on.”
Hutchinson said last week that he would start holding news conferences on the virus once a week “or as necessary,” instead of every weekday.
He said he held his second news conference of this week on Wednesday, however, because the stop in Batesville had already been scheduled.
The count of confirmed and probable cases on the Health Department’s online dashboard increased Wednesday afternoon by 116 in Washington County, 98 in Pulaski County, 43 in Benton County and 42 in Faulkner County.
The number of cases for which information about the person’s county of residence was missing fell by 137, to 1,458.
WHITE HOUSE REPORT
According to the White House report, Arkansas’ growth of 124 cases per 100,000 residents last week was the eighth-highest rate in the country.
During the week that ended Sept. 9, it said, 7.6% of the state’s molecular coronavirus tests were positive.
That was down from 9.6% the previous week but still the 18th-highest percentage among states.
The report classified states as being in the red zone if they had more than 100 cases per 100,000 residents during the week that ended Friday.
It continued to classify Arkansas as being in the yellow zone for cases, meaning 5%-10% of its tests were positive during the week that ended Sept. 9.
It listed 17 Arkansas counties as being in the red zone, meaning they had more than 100 new cases per 100,000 residents the previous week and that more than 10% of their tests were positive.
That was down from 25 counties listed in the previous week’s report.
“Although cases are decreasing across the state, there is a high percent of nursing homes with staff and residents who have recently been diagnosed with COVID-19,” the most recent report says.
It listed 14% of the state’s more than 200 nursing homes as having a new case among residents in the week that ended Sept. 6 and 28% as having a new case among staff members during that time.
Unlike previous editions, it didn’t recommend closing bars in the state, but did suggest using “standard metrics to determine school learning options and capacity limits for bars and indoor seating” in “areas with ongoing high levels of transmission.”
RUSSELLVILLE CLASSES
While schools across the state are offering online options to students in response to virus concerns, the extra burden on teachers prompted the Russellville School Board to eliminate its most popular virtual alternative for kindergarten through eighth graders after its first nine weeks.
Superintendent Mark Gotcher described the board’s decision on Tuesday night as one intended to ease the workload on teachers holding classes in person and online through the Google Classroom platform.
The intention was to deliver the same lesson to inschool and online students.
“What we discovered is that we had a lot of disengaged students,” Gotcher said. “We had students who had our devices who would log in occasionally to complete their assignments at a low level. Teachers were discovering, ‘Oh my goodness, I need to have more contact [with those students],’ and so they were spending time after school trying to coach [the pupils] along through this virtual learning. Teachers had to begin to adjust their lessons to an onsite learner and to off-site learner.
“Many of our teachers felt they were doing two jobs. It was becoming a very time-consuming process,” Gotcher said.
And he said he became concerned that the ongoing practice would lead to exhaustion and to the resignations and retirements of teachers who the district can’t afford to lose.
With the newly approved board plan, virtual students will either rejoin their classmates at school or, if they want to remain online students because of health or other concerns, they can move into the district’s online academy, which uses curriculum from Lincoln Learning Services — not the locally selected curriculum.
The district has 64 students in the Lincoln Learning Services program, 1,550 using the Google Classroom online instruction and 3,614 students learning on campus.
Russellville’s elementary and middle school classroom teachers will continue to use the Google platform for lessons in the classroom and, when necessary, for students who must be quarantined at home for as many as 14 days for covid-related or other health reasons.
But that would only be temporary, Gotcher said. The student would be expected to return to onsite instruction.
The district isn’t changing its online instructional delivery option for grades nine through 12 at this point, Gotcher said, but is looking for good ideas on how to improve it.
Gotcher said the district’s covid numbers have improved in recent days. There were four active cases on Wednesday and about 80 in quarantine, compared with earlier when there were as many as 20 positive cases and 245 quarantined at one time.
OTHER SCHOOLS
The Little Rock School District reported Wednesday that it had been notified of two students and one employee who tested positive for the virus in the 24 hours that ended at 3 p.m. Wednesday.
During the same period, 42 staff and students were directed to quarantine because of contact with someone who tested positive.
The positive cases included an employee at Southwest and one student each at Hall High and Stephens Elementary.
Twenty-five pupils and 11 staff members at Stephens are among the total quarantined. Others who are quarantined are students at Chicot and Forest Park elementaries and Pulaski Heights and Pinnacle View middle schools.
Meanwhile, in Rogers, Aaron Jones, who until this week was the interim chief executive at the 1,182-student Arkansas Arts Academy in Rogers, said the Arts Academy elementary school was closed to on-site instruction Monday and Tuesday this week and the high school on Monday for deep cleaning.
That was in response to a couple of recent covid-19 cases in the charter school’s student body and covid exposures. Both campuses were opened as of Wednesday for those students who have opted for full or partial on-site instruction.
Jones is the school’s art interventionist.
UA ACTIVITIES RESUME
At the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Chancellor Joe Steinmetz announced the lifting of a suspension of on-campus events, imposed on Sept. 4 to slow the spread of the virus.
“While we will continue to closely monitor the situation, we will resume on-campus events that had been suspended from September 4 through this Friday,” Steinmetz said in a letter posted on the university’s website.
“On-campus events will be allowed to resume as of September 21 under the previously established guidelines.”
Steinmetz cited a decline in active cases among students and employees from more than 900 last week to 334 as of Monday.
The number fell again Wednesday, to 305.
The university previously said the suspension would last through Friday, when officials would evaluate whether it should be extended.
“As temperatures fall and we transition into the cold and flu season, we still need to ensure that we continue to be vigilant and embrace best practices,” Steinmetz said in the letter.
“But I do want to thank everyone who has been doing their part to bring these numbers down.”
The university, which has an enrollment of more than 27,500, reported that the vast majority of its cases — 300 — were among students, while five were among faculty, staff and graduate assistants.
Since Monday, the university reported that 63 people previously identified as having the virus had recovered, outpacing the 34 new cases uncovered. Mark Rushing, a spokesman for the university, said the numbers were “encouraging.”
Arkansas State University in Jonesboro reported having 135 active cases among students and employees as of Wednesday, down from 180 on Tuesday.
Information for this article was contributed by John Moritz and Jaime Adame of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.