COVID-19 update
As a service to our readers, The Sentinel-Record publishes updates released by the city of Hot Springs and the state of Arkansas.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson held his weekly press update Tuesday at the state Capitol. The following stats were posted Tuesday on the Arkansas Department of Health website:
• 172,782 cumulative confirmed cases, up 1,110 from Monday.
• 1,598.57 rolling seven-day average of new confirmed cases, down 18 from Monday.
• 1,957,978 PCR test reports, up 8,449 from Monday.
• 8.8% cumulative PCR infection rate, no change from Monday.
• 32,266 cumulative probable cases, up 831 from Monday.
• 18.3% cumulative antigen infection rate, down from 18.4% Monday.
• 21,979 active confirmed and probable cases, down 179 from Monday.
• 179,706 recoveries of confirmed cases, up
2,077 from Monday.
• 1,103 hospitalizations, up 25 from Monday.
• 173 cases on a ventilator, down one from Monday.
• 2,910 confirmed deaths, up 25 from Monday.
• 428 probable deaths, up 18 from Monday.
• 1,429 nursing home deaths, up 10 from Monday.
• 4,525 cumulative confirmed cases in Garland County, up 38 from Monday.
• 49.93 rolling seven-day average of new confirmed cases, up 0.86 from Monday.
• 62,590 PCR and antigen test reports, up 354 from Monday.
• 44,312 private lab reports, up 162 from Monday.
• 18,278 public lab reports, up 192 from Monday.
• 7.8% cumulative PCR infection rate, up from
7.7% Monday.
• 449 active confirmed cases in Garland County, down five from Monday.
• 3,955 recoveries of confirmed cases in Garland County, up 43 from Monday.
• 618 cumulative probable cases in Garland County, up 22 from Monday.
• 145 active probable cases, up seven from Monday.
• 121 confirmed deaths, no change from Monday.
• 18 probable deaths, up two from Monday.
Hutchinson said 12,969 of the state’s health care workers had received the initial dose of Pfizer’s vaccine as of Tuesday morning.
Dr. Jose Romero, the state’s secretary of health, said more than half the state’s initial allotment has been administered. Hutchinson said the state will get 23,400 more doses next week, an amount that’s in addition to booster doses for those who have been given the initial dose of the two-dose regimen.
The state will get 17,700 doses of Moderna’s vaccine next week, Hutchinson said. While the Pfizer doses have been reserved for health care workers, Moderna’s are earmarked for nursing home residents and staff. Romero said it will take four to six weeks to vaccinate health care workers, emergency medical services workers and nursing home residents and staff.
“If we immunize 80% of the high- risk groups in that first tier we can move on,” he said. “Or if we see demand fall off. If there’s a decrease in the amount of demand over time, then we will move onto the next one. My thoughts are it’s going to take us four to six weeks to get through this first phase.”
Essential workers and people 75 and older are the next groups the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has prioritized for vaccination.
Romero, who chairs the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, said the CDC split essential workers into two tiers. First responders, teachers, food and agriculture workers, manufacturing workers, corrections workers, postal workers, transit workers and grocery store workers are in the first tier of essential personnel, Romero said.
“The data indicated that you would get maximum benefit and minimum harm by using vaccine in those individuals who are over 75,” Romero said. “By combining (essential workers and people 75 and older) you come up with a reasonable number of individuals that can be served by the vaccine available.”
The Health Department promulgated a new directive Tuesday for indoor gatherings at commercial venues, reducing the attendance threshold that requires a safety plan to be submitted and approved by the state. The revised directive lowered the threshold from 100 to 10 attendees.
“This does not mean that we can’t have indoor venues that’s larger than 10 people,” Hutchinson said. “It simply means you have to have a good plan approved by the Department of Health to make sure it’s safe, and that you have your distancing, your mask requirements and the other things that are necessary to make your venue safe.”
The directive doesn’t apply to places of worship, retail businesses, community or school sponsored events, restaurants, bars and residences. Those venues either aren’t regulated by the Health Department or are subject to other directives.
Monday and Tuesday’s combined net increase of 46 hospitalizations set a new peak for the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals, surpassing the previous high of 1,088 set Dec. 2 by more than 1%.
“Everybody actually expected the hospitalizations to be higher than they are right now,” Hutchinson said. “We’re in a better than expected position. I say that because our cases have gone up significantly. Our hospitalization has not gone up at near the same rate.
“Our existing capacity has been able to manage the current caseload, but with 25 more today we don’t know what the rest of December is going be like. We don’t know what January is going to be like, because we don’t know what Christmas is going to be like.”
Hutchinson said the state is partnering with Baptist Health System for an additional 124 hospital beds. Fifty will be placed in the J.A. Gilbreath Conference Center at Baptist Health’s Little Rock campus and
74 at the hospital system’s Van Buren campus.
Hutchinson said the additional beds will cost $7.4 million. He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency will cover
80% of the cost.