Battling the worst

Plea for Arkansans to act grows with covid’s spread

“Unless circumstances change drastically, this will get worse before it gets better. This virus is trying to break us here in the state of Arkansas, but while we are bending we are not about to break.”

Dr. Cam Patterson Chancellor, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

In addition to running the state’s medical school, the chancellor of UAMS is, effectively, the chief executive of a major statewide medical system caring for Arkansans. In that role, Dr. Cam Patterson and other hospital leaders have witnessed the growing strain on the state’s health care facilities and, most critically, their work forces.

It’s been building since March, when the state’s first case of covid-19 was discovered, but particularly in the days since the Thanksgiving holiday.

Case numbers have skyrocketed. The report on the final day of 2020 added 39 deaths for the previous 24 hours, bringing the state’s total covid-related deaths in 2020 to 3,676, with the final 24 hours still to be reported. With 2,708 new covid-19 cases, the year’s tally grew to 225,138, with 22,189 considered active near the close of 2020.

The day before, those who tested positive for the virus in the previous 24 hours numbered 3,184, the second-highest one-day total since the start of the pandemic. The record, 3,204, was set on Christmas Eve.

The number of covid-19 patients in hospitals approached 2,000 at year’s end.

Now that Christmas has been celebrated and we’ve gratefully left 2020 in the rear view mirror, the existence of vaccines provides hope that 2021 will be better. But Patterson’s message last week, posted on Twitter, continued a message he’s delivered a lot since last spring: Praise for the resolve within health care to respond forcefully against the ravages of covid-19 while also projecting worse days ahead.

He had to voice those same concerns last week, at least partially predicated on the history of behaviors among Arkansans who have aided and abetted the spread of the coronavirus by not taking the warnings very seriously. The state’s covid-19 numbers would not be exploding these days except for the fact that at least some Arkansans shrugged off warnings and attended larger gatherings around Thanksgiving.

That’s not to say a lot of Arkansans aren’t trying. Just not enough to stem the tide.

In January, we’ll learn more about how Arkansans did for Christmas and New Year’s. Our history doesn’t make for good projections. Among those who do exercise caution, the growth in cases means it will be even harder to avoid infected people because there will be more of them. It’s the difference between strolling through a open field of a driving range when there’s one golfer taking practice swings vs. when there are 10. The odds of getting walloped get a lot higher.

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But we’ve got a vaccine, right? That’s good news indeed, but there are signs that for all the effort put into developing vaccines at a “warp speed,” less attention was paid to the systems necessary to actually deliver the vaccines into people’s arms. The Trekkies out there would say the national roll-out is more like impulse power. Confused? Ask your favorite nerd.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the nation’s slower-than-expected roll-out of vaccines has been disappointing.

Of 12.4 million doses distributed by mid-week, only 2.8 million had been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s like having a mask but leaving it hanging from your vehicle’s rear view mirror: It doesn’t even have a chance to be effective.

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It’s only natural that Arkansans most directly consider their immediate surroundings and circumstances when deciding whether they ought to heed the advice to wear masks, wash hands frequently and keep their distance from others. What public health authorities ask, though, is that everyone consider the stresses on the health care system that may seem a distant concern, but really isn’t. When hospital ICU beds are full or there are staffing shortages in hospitals, covid-19 patients back up in emergency rooms. When emergency rooms are full, it slows down intake of all sorts of patients — covid-related or not. The inefficiencies slow down ambulances dropping patients off, meaning there are fewer ambulances available to cover the geographic areas they’re responsible for. Response times suffer.

And while we’re glad Arkansas’ public health leaders have activated the coordinating power of the so-called “CovidComm” among the state’s hospitals and public health authorities, shuttling patients farther away strains families and the emergency response system.

All that to say this: Every avoided covid-19 infection is an investment in better health care throughout the state not just for those suffering from covid-19, but those who need medical care for all the other ailments that might send one to a hospital — heart attacks, strokes, diabetes or injuries from traffic accidents and other mishaps. Even if you’re convinced covid-19 isn’t a threat because you’re young or otherwise healthy, who among us knows on any given day when we’ll need medical services? And if that happens, does anyone want to see a “No Vacancy” sign as he pulls up to the hospital?

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Of course, there’s the question of taking the vaccines, which also drew UAMS Chancellor Patterson’s attention in his Twitter pleas last week.

“I also implore you to embrace the vaccines that have been made available by the FDA, & to get your shots as soon as they are made available to you. I suspect that the amount of misinformation about the vaccines will increase over the next few weeks and I implore you to listen to trusted sources. I am very proud of the work that our state leaders are doing to curb the adverse impact of this pandemic. None of us agree on everything, but we should all agree on the sanctity of human life and the devastation that this pandemic has on the families of people that we know. We will get through this. We will get through this much sooner if we all work together.

“This virus is non-partisan, but it does feed on those of us who have limited access to healthcare resources. Let’s put those members of our community at the top of our minds right now.”

What does working together mean? It means keeping the big picture in mind. It means Arkansans responding with compassion by taking the steps necessary to avoid becoming one more burden on a health care system that’s creaking and moaning under the pressures of covid-19. It means understanding that each individual’s decisions matter in the state’s fight to stem the spread. It means rejecting conjured up fears about vaccines by replacing those fears with facts so that, in 2021, we can sooner rather than later embrace the world’s best hope for getting past this pandemic and saving lives.