County sees increase in COVID-19 cases, deaths
The latest Hot Springs/Garland County
COVID-19 Task Force report for the week of Oct.
11-18 painted a bleak picture, with a higher number of new cases, active cases and eight deaths in the county, while there was also a decrease in the number of tests performed.
According to the report, over the past week, the county saw 145 new cases, 164 active cases and eight new deaths, bringing the toll to 62, with 2,176 tests performed.
“Even with our increase in the positivity, compared to the other larger counties, we’re still below them,” Garland County Health Officer Dr. Gene Shelby said Tuesday. “But if it’s any one factor (caus
ing the county’s case influx), it’s probably the spike in the nursing homes; which isn’t terribly surprising since the state’s doing a lot of testing in the nursing homes, so it’s good that we’re identifying those cases.” (See related article on Page One.)
With the older population being a part of the influx in cases, Shelby speculates the death toll will continue to rise in the coming weeks.
“The disturbing trend is that the greater than 65 portion … has gone up really steadily over the past month, and this past week 33% of our cases were in the over 65; and over two-thirds of people in Arkansas who have died from COVID-19 have been in that age group,” Shelby said. “So that’s kind of the disturbing thing, and I think we’re going to have more deaths over the next few weeks because of that high percentage of the older population that are testing positive.”
On the other side of the spectrum, there has been a decrease in cases among the 0-17 population.
“I think one thing is that the schools are doing a really good job in following the mandates real well, and the good thing is that the percentage of our cases in Garland County in the 0-17 has actually gone down, and I think that’s because the schools are really kind of monitoring and testing,” Shelby said.
To keep things from getting worse among the population as a whole, he said people need to keep a “heightened awareness that we’re still in the middle of this pandemic.”
“While things in Garland County are a whole lot better than they were in July and August, we’re still seeing at least 10 new positive cases a day in the county,” Shelby said. “So there’s virus here, and again it’s not anything new that this is a highly contagious virus, and there are things we can do to kind of slow the spread, and masks are number one; and social distancing.
“These people talk about getting tired of doing it, but it’s a fact of life that this virus is here and it’s still spreading and it’s still killing.”
As for the local hospitals, Shelby said while they have more cases now than they had a couple of months ago, they “certainly have a lot of capacity.”
Both CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs and National Park Medical Center issued statements Tuesday on the recent COVID-19 case influx.
“As COVID-19 continues to spread, emergency preparation coordinators at CHI St. Vincent facilities and our infection prevention leaders are continuously updating our policies and procedures in real-time to best respond to the latest developments related to COVID-19 in order to meet the needs of our patients and communities,” said the statement from CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs.
“There is no higher priority than the safety of our people and our patients. CHI St. Vincent has been working nonstop to ensure that all health care providers who need personal protective equipment (PPE) have the right equipment at the right time and are using it correctly. CHI St. Vincent currently has the supplies and equipment needed to effectively protect our caregivers and care for members of our community who are symptomatic of COVID-19. We are continuously assessing the volume of supplies at all our facilities,” it said.
“All of our facilities have pandemic and surge capacity policies and training that we have refined over the years and are continuously reviewing. Any patient capacity concerns would involve a coordinated effort with public health and other nearby hospitals. We have created collaborative networks with public health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health systems to ensure that patients who need care can get to facilities with capacity if necessary.
“CHI St. Vincent remains in frequent contact with the Arkansas Department of Health and is cooperating with leadership from all other area hospitals to ensure that we meet the health care needs of our communities. At this point, we remain confident that by working together, we can continue to meet those needs going forward,” the statement said.
National Park Medical Center, in its statement, said it is “committed to providing high-quality care and protecting the health and safety of our patients and our community. As we continue to see community spread of the COVID-19 virus in Garland County, we want to urge our friends and neighbors to continue their safe practices including wearing a face covering over the mouth and nose when unable to social distance, good hand hygiene, and frequent disinfection of high touch surfaces.”
“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been carefully following federal and state guidance, monitoring the prevalence of the disease in our community, and carefully evaluating our supplies and resources, including PPE. We have been good stewards of our resources during this challenging time, and, as a result, we have adequate supplies to care for our patients and protect our staff,” the statement said.
“Over the past several weeks, we have been treating, on average, around 15 patients per day with COVID-19. We continue to monitor closely the prevalence of the virus in our community and build upon our hospital’s emergency operations plan (EOP), which maps out — among many things — our escalation plan in the event of a surge of patients.”