[ad_1]
The number of coronavirus cases in Arkansas rose on Tuesday by 1,476 – the largest day-on-day increase in new cases in more than five months – while the number of patients hospitalized with the virus topped 600 for the first time since February 20.
The state has reported 15 more deaths from covid-19, the most in a day since March 30, bringing the state’s death toll to 5,970.
“Today’s report of 41 new hospitalizations should be of concern to unvaccinated Arkansans,” Governor Asa Hutchinson said in a tweet.
“98.3% of people hospitalized since January were not vaccinated.”
The Republican governor addressed residents of Blytheville at noon and at night in Forrest City as part of a series of meetings to encourage residents to get vaccinated.
In Blytheville, he cited the fast-spreading delta variant that first appeared in India and a low vaccination rate in Arkansas as reasons for the “dramatic” increase in cases and hospitalizations in the state over the past year. last month.
He compared the 35% of state residents who were fully vaccinated on Tuesday with the national rate of around 48%.
[CORONAVIRUS: Click here for our complete coverage » arkansasonline.com/coronavirus]
“This is too low a vaccination rate for Arkansas,” Hutchinson said, adding that the rate in Mississippi County was even lower.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the county’s rate at 25.2% on Tuesday.
“The risk of the delta variant continuing and creating more cases and more hospitalizations is much greater when you have this low vaccination rate,” Hutchinson said.
He said that the 2021-22 school year approaching in about a month adds urgency to the need for more people to get vaccinated.
In the previous school year, a statewide mandate was in place for people to wear masks in most indoor public places.
Hutchinson lifted that mandate on March 30.
Law 1002, signed by Hutchinson in this year’s legislative session, will ban public schools and government entities from requiring masks when it goes into effect on July 28.
“As we look forward to school, there is a vital resource to make sure that we have a good school year and that we don’t have an increase in cases, and what is it? the world is getting vaccinated, ”Hutchinson said.
As of Thursday, 19.5% of Arkansans aged 12 to 17 had received at least one dose of the vaccine and 13.5% had been fully immunized, according to a federal report.
[EMAIL SIGNUP: Form not appearing above? Click here to subscribe to updates on the coronavirus » arkansasonline.com/coronavirus/email/]
Of the three vaccines licensed in the United States, the Pfizer vaccine is licensed for people as young as 12 years old, while those from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are only licensed for people 18 years of age and older.
The Pfizer vaccine protocol calls for people to receive two doses, three weeks apart. The person is not considered fully protected against the virus until two weeks after the second dose.
State epidemiologist Jennifer Dillaha said the Arkansas Department of Health is working with the state Department of Education on guidelines for schools that will take into account guidelines issued by the CDC this week. latest as well as legislation passed in Arkansas during this year’s session.
Those guidelines should be ready “very soon”, perhaps by the end of this week, she said.
The state’s coronavirus figures on Tuesday made her “increasingly worried about how things will turn out the rest of the summer, especially with school starting in a month,” he said. she declared.
“I think it is very likely that we will see a spread in schools if we fail to increase our vaccination rates for older students, staff and teachers and to protect the younger ones,” said Dillaha.
“The delta variant is so contagious that I am very concerned that we have outbreaks in schools.”
Meanwhile, she said, Hutchinson plans to hold a conference call Thursday, for the first time in months, with the “Covid-19 winter task force” he created in November to study ways to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed amid a spike in cases officials blamed in part on Halloween gatherings.
“I think we’re going to have to think about what we’re going to do in the state to minimize hospitalizations not just for covid but for other conditions,” she said.
She said it “remains to be seen” whether the number of covid-19 patients in state hospitals will exceed levels reached in January, when it surpassed 1,300.
“The trend in hospitalizations is what worries me the most due to the delay in care due to the pandemic,” said Dillaha.
“People are postponing care for other diseases, not just covid, which they need to be cured, and if we have a lot of covid cases then I think we will have side effects of the potential of people who need care for non-covid-related conditions potentially not able to receive it in a timely manner. “
INCREASE IN CASES
Excluding 2,932 cases that were added to Arkansas’ tally as part of a “data cleanse” on February 28, the increase in cases on Tuesday was the largest in a single day since 5 February.
The average number of cases added to the state’s tally each day over a continuous seven-day period rose to 979, its highest level since February 12.
With new cases exceeding recoveries, the number of cases in the state that were considered active increased by 879, to 8,134, the highest total since February 17.
The increase in the number of hospitalized patients took the number to 606, its highest level since February 19.
It was the eighth day in a row that the number had increased by two digits.
The number of patients infected with the virus who were on ventilators increased by four, to 98, its highest level since February 26.
After surging above 200 over the weekend for the first time since February, the number of patients infected with the virus who were in intensive care increased by 27, to reach 240, its highest level since February 18.
Based on data up to Monday, CDC rankings updated on Tuesday showed Arkansas to overtake Missouri as the state with the most new cases per 100,000 residents over a seven-day period.
Arkansas’ 5,648 cases in the week ending Monday resulted in a rate of 187.2 per 100,000 population.
Missouri’s rate was 174 per 100,000 population.
Florida had the second highest rate, at 126.5 per 100,000 population.
With 35 deaths from the virus reported during the week, Arkansas ranked just behind Missouri as the state with the most deaths per 100,000 population during the period.
Arkansas’ count translated to a rate of 1.2 per 100,000 population.
Missouri was 1.6 per 100,000 population.
Citing the increase in cases in both states, the Chicago Department of Public Health released an advisory on Tuesday recommending unvaccinated travelers to Arkansas and Missouri get a negative covid-19 test for no more than 72 hours. before arriving in the city or quarantining themselves for 10 days after arrival.
In Washington and Benton counties, the number of covid-19 hospital patients doubled to 58 on Tuesday in just over three weeks, a coalition of health care providers said in a statement.
“The last time we had volumes in the 1950s was in February 2021 when our winter surge was down,” the suppliers said. “The vast majority of COVID-19 hospitalizations today are people who have not been vaccinated. “
The coalition includes the Washington Regional Medical System, Mercy Health System, Northwest Health System, Arkansas Children’s Northwest, Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks, UAMS Northwest, and Community Clinic.
Pulaski County recorded the most new cases on Tuesday, 215, followed by Benton County, which had 182, and Washington County, which had 146.
Dillaha said 13.8% of the state’s coronavirus tests were positive over a continuous seven-day period from Monday. This is a slight decrease from the 14.1% initially reported for the seven days ending Sunday and 14.7% for the week ending Thursday.
Hutchinson said he wanted to keep the rate below 10%.
All of the deaths reported on Tuesday occurred within the past month, Dillaha said.
The number of people who have previously been hospitalized with confirmed infections in the state rose by 118 on Tuesday, to 17,479.
The number of people who have ever been on a ventilator increased by 12 to 1,773.
RURAL GAP
At the Blytheville event, Hutchinson said vaccination rates are higher in towns across Arkansas than in surrounding rural areas.
“We do better in our cities than in our counties, but guess where those in our county and Mississippi County shop, or where they shop, or where they go to school? Hutchinson said. “We interact with them from church to all other activities. We need to get everyone immunized throughout the area.”
He said pastors are a “source of trust” who can play an important role in encouraging vaccinations.
Some have done it, even running immunization clinics in their churches, but “some say the opposite from the pulpit, and shame on them because you could lead someone to death,” Hutchinson said.
“You could cause someone to die if you tell them, ‘Don’t get the vaccine. “”
Dillaha said the virus has spread to summer camps, places of worship, long-term care facilities and at family gatherings.
“The thing they all have in common are unvaccinated people who don’t wear masks and social distancing,” she said.
Of the 74,247 cases identified in Arkansas since Jan. 25, 2,572 – or about 3.5% – were the result of “breakthrough” infections, meaning they occurred at least two weeks after the outbreak. person’s last dose of vaccine, Department of Health spokeswoman Danyelle McNeill said. .
Such breakthrough infections have resulted in 69 hospitalizations and eight deaths, representing 1.7% of the 4,068 people hospitalized with covid-19 and 1.5% of the 522 people who have died from the virus since January 25, she said.
Figures from the Department of Health continued on Tuesday to show a slight increase in the state’s vaccinations since the weekend of July 4.
At 5,551, the increase in the number of doses providers reported giving, including the second doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, was nearly 3,600 more than the increase a week earlier.
The average number of doses administered each day over a rolling seven-day period increased to 4,785.
It was still down from an average of over 5,700 per day just before the bank holiday weekend.
According to the CDC, the number of Arkansans who received at least one dose of the vaccine rose by 1,429 to 1,300,846 on Tuesday, or 43.1% of the state’s population.
The number of people fully immunized increased by 819 to 1,055,646.
Among states and the District of Columbia, Arkansas continued to rank 45th for the percentage of its residents who had received at least one dose of vaccine and 49th, just ahead of Mississippi and Alabama, for the percentage who had been fully vaccinated.
[ad_2]
Source link