Governor: Decline in cases not as steep as last winter

The state’s infection curve has traced a steady downward trajectory for two months, but the drop hasn’t been as steep as the descent from the peak the state reached in January.

That rise occurred over three months, beginning in mid-October and topping out in the second week of January. By early March, the rolling seven-day average of new polymerase chain reaction-confirmed infections had fallen 90%.

The ascent to the non-winter peak the state reached in mid-August was steeper than last fall and winter’s rise, tracing an almost vertical ascent over a six-week period, but the two-month descent hasn’t been as pronounced as last winter’s drop. The combined PCR and antigen infection curve has fallen 71% from August’s non-winter peak.

“The decline is a little bit more gradual versus what the decline was in January,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Wednesday at his weekly press update. “It reflects the seriousness of the delta variant.

“It will be instructive to us to see how low we will go, whether we can go as low as we did when we didn’t have the delta variant or whether we’re going to have some residual challenges as we go into the latter months of this year.”

The Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee met Thursday and unanimously recommended an emergency use authorization for a third dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. The 19-0 vote supported Moderna’s request to use a halfdose of its vaccine as a booster for people 65 and older, people 18 to 64 at high risk of severe disease from the virus or whose jobs put them at risk of developing complications from the virus.

The FDA has yet to authorize the third dose, which would be given six months after the second dose.

As a service to our readers, The Sentinel-Record publishes updates released by the city of Hot Springs and the state of Arkansas.

The Arkansas Department of Health is no longer reporting confirmed and probable cases separately. The following stats were posted Thursday on the Health Department’s website:

• 505,297 cumulative cases, up 781 from Wednesday.

• 645.43 rolling seven-day average of new cases, down 0.85 from Wednesday.

• 4,003,471 PCR test reports, up 6,685 from Wednesday.

• 9.3% cumulative PCR infection rate, no change from Wednesday.

• 6,820 active cases, up 118 from Wednesday.

• 490,170 recoveries, up 650 from Wednesday.

• 3,924,840 vaccine doses received, up 10,750 from Wednesday.

• 3,008,197 doses given, up 6,369 from Wednesday.

• 505 hospitalizations, down 26 from Wednesday.

• 153 cases on ventilators, down 10 from Wednesday.

• 243 ICU patients, down 10 from Wednesday.

• 8,176 deaths, up 10 from Wednesday.

• 2,243 nursing home deaths, up two from Wednesday.

• 15,817 cumulative cases in Garland County, up 21 from Wednesday.

• 15.71 rolling seven-day average of new cases, up 0.86 from Wednesday.

• 157,705 PCR and antigen test reports, up 230 from Wednesday.

• 10.3% cumulative PCR infection rate, no change from Wednesday.

• 124 active cases in Garland County, up 10 from Wednesday.

• 15,312 recoveries in Garland County, up 11 from Wednesday.

• 381 deaths, no change from Wednesday.