Hutchinson announces casino reopenings during Texarkana visit
Governor compliments city and county response to pandemic
TEXARKANA, Ark. — During a visit to Texarkana on Thursday, Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced that the Arkansas Department of Health will soon issue guidelines for reopening Arkansas’ three casinos on May 18.
Casinos will be allowed to open at one-third capacity with stringent social distancing rules in place to help stop the spread of the new coronavirus, he said.
The announcement came during Hutchinson’s daily briefing on Arkansas’ response to the COVID19 pandemic, which he and ADH Director Dr. Nate Smith delivered from Texarkana’s Arkansas Convention Center.
“Dr. Smith has worked very hard, we’ve all worked hard with the (gaming) industry. They have presented proposals as to how they can socially distance in that environment, they can manage the population there,” Hutchinson said.
He cited his relationship with Mayor Allen Brown, as well as Texarkana’s importance to the state’s economy, as reasons he chose to visit the city.
“I chose to come to Texarkana because we wanted to take this message to
other areas of the state. But Texarkana being on the border, having such great communication with your mayor, I wanted to come to South Arkansas, and Texarkana was a natural spot for that.
“I realize how important Texarkana is to the economy of our state, and I wanted to make sure that we’re managing it well and also to really congratulate the leadership and the citizens for what I consider some very good work that y’all are doing,” Hutchinson said.
The governor praised Texarkana’s and Miller County’s response to the pandemic but said the fight against the virus is not over.
“You’ve done a very, very good job of containing the spread, making sure that you do the social distancing and the wearing of masks and doing what is necessary to protect yourself and others from the spread of this deadly virus. We have to remind ourselves, even though we’re opening up, that we still have a challenge to face,” Hutchinson said.
Asked about cooperation between Arkansas and bordering states in responding to the crisis, both Hutchinson and Smith said communication is open and frequent between them and their counterparts.
“We (governors) communicate with each other, and it’s primarily sharing information because everybody’s in a different position. What’s happening in Louisiana is obviously very different from what’s happening in Arkansas,” Hutchinson said.
“Sharing of information across state lines is something we do on a routine basis. We have good partnerships with our colleagues in the other states,” Smith said. “Here in the southern states, we have a weekly call.”
Smith addressed comments about Texarkana he made during Wednesday’s briefing, saying that the southwest region of the state is one of two with more cases than the rest of the state recently, but that it would be inaccurate to call it a “hot spot.”
“In terms of absolute cases, Texarkana certainly is not a national hot spot. What I was talking about yesterday was really just looking at the previous two days, where we had seen larger increases in percent of cases,” Smith said.
Brown took the opportunity to encourage all Arkansans to continue observing ADH guidelines such as social distancing.
“My message across the state is to still continue to follow these directives to the best of your ability, and sure enough we’ll get to where we need to be,” Brown said.
Hutchinson pointed out several indicators that the state’s number of coronavirus cases is waning, including decreases in new cases, active cases and hospitalizations.
Referring to a two-day uptick in new cases after a period of steady decline, he said a “jagged pattern” of decreases and increases was to be expected but the seven-day average is moving in the right direction, downward.
Active cases, those in which the patient has not yet recovered, have peaked and now show a “rather steep decline,” Hutchinson said, referring to an ADH graph. Hospitalizations because of COVID-19, which Hutchinson characterized as a “steady and reliable” indicator of how many patients in the state are sick, are also on a downward trend.
Arkansas is on its way to meeting Hutchinson’s goal of 60,000 coronavirus tests in May, he said. On Tuesday, more than 2,100 tests were conducted in the state.
“I’m hoping that this will be our new trend. Really our goal is to be testing more than 2,000 every day,” Smith said.
If there is not an upswing of coronavirus cases in the next 14 days, Arkansas will enter Phase 2 of the state’s economic reopening plan, with looser restrictions and more kinds of businesses and gathering places allowed to operate.
“We’ve got to do this carefully. We’ve got to do it together. We’ve got to be sure we avoid that resurgence that people have expressed concerns about,” Hutchinson said.