Percentages
From the opposite corner of the continent, ten degrees to the north on the map and at least 45 degrees south on the thermometer, came an e-mail from a friend, a semi-retired specialty surgeon who spends much of every summer with family at their getaway cottage in the mountains of western Massachusetts. His gang of pals had looked forward to reuniting, welcoming one another back home to Arkansas after their respective vacations, for most of them the first in two years. But as do many folks these days, he stays in touch with his state while away by reading the statewide paper on-line, and based on the data it is reporting, “We have elected to stay here for now.”
In his missive our friend cited the day’s accounting by Arkansas health authorities, who identified more than 1,700 new cases of Covid-19. In two of the previous three days the new case count exceeded 2,000. In 48 hours, 32 additional coronavirus deaths. He had taken note, too, of the state’s combined hospital patient census (how could he not?) and, not for the first time, was taken aback by the few (“very few”) hospital beds available, and the essentially zero space remaining among intensive care units. Ventilators: more than nine of every ten were in use by Covid-19 patients.
His native state, the doctor’s, is a bastion of conservative thinking, proudly emphasizing in its public policies the doctrines of personal responsibility and the rights of the individual, to include such matters as masking and congregate activity and, notably, immunization. It is also now a virtual viral disaster zone. A few hours after the e-mail in mention landed came the latest, depressing measure of what Gov. Hutchinson declared — formally — to be a public health emergency: Arkansas’s case count rose by more than 2,800, the largest single-day increase in more than six months. Eleven additional deaths.
“By comparison,” the doctor wrote, “Massachusetts” — insanely liberal Massachusetts, supposedly, though the doctor did not write that — “with over twice the population in a much smaller geographic area, meaning everybody is much closer together, had 99 new cases and three deaths today.”
The doctor made no mention of the vaccination rates in the two states and did not have to, as the information is readily available. As July rolled into August, 58 percent of Arkansans eligible (meaning age 12 and older) for the vaccine had accepted it, or taken the first dose of the two-dose regimen; in the Bay State 84 percent had done so. Three of every four eligible Massachusetts residents were completely vaccinated against Covid compared to fewer than half their Arkansas cousins.
Even with the recent marked increase in the number of Arkansans accepting the vaccine, the Wonder State, and never has that nickname seemed more appropriate, trails all but a handful of the states in percentage of those having received even one of the injections. Meantime, the percentage increase in the case rate is in triple digits in Arkansas.
For a man of science, a physician with a practice that spans almost a half-century, the decision to shelter in place was an easy one. He was to resume his clinical routine in Arkansas this month but his staff is now canceling the appointments and advising the doctor’s patients that he quite probably won’t return until late September, if then. He was looking forward to his high school reunion in early autumn, which only a few weeks ago looked like a can’t-miss-sure-thing after 16 or so months of near-solitude, but the coronavirus resurgence has the 50th anniversary planners discussing a year postponement. In a different, pre-Covid year, the actuarial tables alone would mean fewer attendees in 2022; with the invisible enemy gnawing at the state, the turnout could be expected to be even smaller.
Another e-mail, this one forwarded by a member of the Arkansas General Assembly, who said its authors and their assertions typified much of the constituent communication he had received of late:
“Masks don't work, are dangerous to the wearers, and are unconstitutional.”
“(E)veryone should know the whole ‘pandemic’ was a planned hoax, intended to be a money-maker for the elite…or a genocide of the rest of us…or maybe there's some other reason.” ‘Covid’ was never even identified according to the CDC's own admission .... its genome was computer generated .... in other words, it was "a guess." And the PCR test is known by everyone to be fraudulent
“Has everyone forgotten that we have immune systems that have stood us well for thousands of years? How well they work if we don't interfere with them? And people are interfering with them by taking gene therapies incorrectly called ‘vaccines.’ The ‘vaccines’ are dangerous and should be discontinued, pending more study by INDEPENDENT researchers. Vaccine mandates are morally and ethically wrong.”
And yet another e-mail, from a triage nurse I know well, and who has dealt with Covid since it arrived in Arkansas: “The crazies are running the state. They’re crazy. Crazy.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Steve Barnes is a columnist with Editorial Associates in Little Rock.)