Day’s vaccinations hit 14,499 in turnaround

State druggists see rise in shot-seekers

Demand for covid-19 vaccines continued to rise in Arkansas, with the state Health Department reporting 14,499 shots given Saturday.

Pharmacists say demand for the vaccines has doubled and even tripled in recent weeks.

“We’re getting a lot more calls asking about it,” said David Chu, a pharmacist at Argenta Drug in North Little Rock. “We’re trying to do our best to sell the vaccine to people — not sell as in to

make money, but [as in] to encourage them to get it.”

The more-infectious delta variant of the coronavirus likely has played a role in the uptick of vaccinations, said Terry Perkins, the manager of all three Medicine Man Pharmacy sites in North Little Rock. The pharmacy directs people seeking vaccines to its location at Baptist Health hospital in North Little Rock on Springhill Drive.

“In July, we [gave] a total of 157 vaccines here, and so far in the first two weeks of August we’ve already done 126,” Perkins said.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s daily Twitter statement noted a positive turn in some of the numbers compared with a week earlier.

“Vaccinations are up and new cases are down, but we still are seeing strain on our hospitals,” Hutchinson said.

Six fewer people were hospitalized with covid-19 and five fewer patients were on ventilators Saturday than Friday, according to data from the Arkansas Department of Health. It was the first day since Aug. 6 that both numbers decreased.

“It’s hard to put a lot of significance into that, but at least they didn’t go up,” state Epidemiologist Jennifer Dillaha said.

Saturday’s 1,452 covid-19 hospital patients and 291 patients on ventilators still marked an increase from a week earlier, when there were 1,240 hospitalized patients and 271 on ventilators.

Arkansas has seen 19,238 people hospitalized with covid-19 since the pandemic began last year, according to Health Department data.

The state also had 13 new deaths from covid-19 Saturday, for a total of 6,445.

New positive cases were 516 fewer than a week earlier, and Dillaha called that “an encouraging sign.”

There were 2,117 new cases Saturday, bringing the total to 418,290 since March 2020, according to Health Department data. Pulaski County had the most new cases with 228, Benton County had 180 and Washington County had 124.

Chu said a “significant population” of Arkansans seems to have decided against getting vaccinated, despite the rising numbers of cases and hospitalizations, even if they have contracted covid-19.

“At this point, I would say it’s a tough sell because people have made up their minds that they’re not going to get it no matter what,” Chu said. “The undecideds have started to get it, and that’s the increase that we’re seeing.”

Argenta Drug currently administers only Moderna shots, but Chu said the pharmacy might acquire Pfizer shots soon in order to provide them to children between 12 and 15 years old.

Medicine Man Pharmacy administers Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson shots. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Friday that people with compromised immune systems receive a third Pfizer or Moderna shot to protect them from variants of concern.

Perkins said Medicine Man Pharmacy is “geared up and ready” to administer those third shots.

The Health Department will start collecting data on how many third shots are administered in the coming weeks, Dillaha said.

So far, 43.9% of Arkansans 12 and older have been fully vaccinated, according to Health Department data.

Saturday’s 1,452 covid-19 hospital patients and 291 patients on ventilators still marked an increase from a week earlier, when there were 1,240 hospitalized patients and 271 on ventilators.