Arkansas keeps breaking records recently such as hospitals seeing the highest level of Covid-19 hospitalizations since the pandemic began, resulting in only eight ICU beds being available in the state. Health officials are warning of burnout and staffing shortages while scrambling to open more beds to meet the demand linked to the the Delta variant of Covid-19. With more than 3,000 new cases of Covid in one day recently, the number of active cases in the state reached nearly 24,000 August 8.
Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, chief epidemiologist for Arkansas, called the situation very serious because hospitals are so full it is difficult to transfer patients to facilities where they can get the appropriate level of care.
The surge in late July and early August raised concern about schools opening without requiring masks for students. A special session of the legislature called by Gov. Asa Hutchinson failed to overturn legislation that blocked school districts from requiring masks. Legislators in favor of the ban said a requirement for masks took away personal freedoms. Sen. Bob Ballinger said most parents in his district did not want their kids to be forced to wear masks at school.
But school officials, teachers, and many parents in Eureka Springs were greatly relieved that on July 6 a judge in Pulaski County issued a ruling temporarily blocking the state from enforcing the ban. Judge Tim Fox said the legislation violated the separation of powers and equal protection clauses of the Arkansas Constitution.
School Board President Chris McClung, who had earlier expressed disappointment that the legislature had tied the hands of local school officials, said the court ruling sheds a new light on things.
“At least as of now, we have a reprieve,” McClung said. “As a school board member, I support requiring masks for students on campus. Anything we can do to keep our kids safe needs to be done.”
McClung pointed to the experience of the Marion School District which started classes in late July and had problems with Covid infections and the number of children who had to quarantine. The Marion and Little Rock School Districts, as well as a Rogers attorney, filed lawsuits to overturn the mask ban. In early August, the Marion School District had 59 students test positive for Covid which required more than 923 students and 13 staff members to be put in quarantine.
“If you don’t have enough attendance, you have to close school down and go back to virtual learning,” McClung said. “That’s a challenge, to say the least. Some kids do well with it. Other kids do not. It is a personal thing. It can depend on how much support they get at home and if they have reliable access to high-speed internet.”
Local parent Megan Kirk said the ruling is a huge relief.
“Bottom line, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants the kids masked in school—duh, they should mask,” Kirk said. “It should be strict, too—no noses out, no cheating.”
Dr. Joe Thompson, president and CEO of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, said recently that if the ban on masks remained, children would be avoidably exposed to the virus, some would be hospitalized, and some would probably die.
“No school district should be legally barred from protecting Arkansas children from harm,” Thompson wrote in a press release that noted 140 school districts were in areas with high current rates of Covid. The districts had a rate of at least 50 new known infections per 10,000 district residents over the previous 14 days.
Dr. Dan Bell, co-founder of the ECHO Clinic, said he was embarrassed about the legislature refusing to overturn its ban on masks even as the Delta variant has become dominant causing more illnesses and deaths, with about 99 percent of the current deaths being in unvaccinated people.
“Arkansas Children’s Hospital is the fullest it has been in 25 years because of this Covid,” Bell said. “While earlier variants were largely sparing children, Delta is hitting kids. They are getting sick. Some are dying. No children should be dying. Parents should be vaccinated. Everyone around them should be vaccinated. The Delta variant has changed things. This battle with Covid is not over. This surge is bad. Our cases are about where we were at the peak in December and the first week of the year.”
Bell said he hopes that vaccines will be approved soon for younger children. Right now, only those 12 and older can be vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine.
The Delta surge has compelled more people in Arkansas to get vaccinated with 13,201 doses administered on August 7. That day there were 2,633 new cases, 400 fewer than Friday’s spike of 3,037. About 1,270 people were hospitalized statewide. Currently, about 404,277 people in the state have tested positive for Covid.
As of August 9, 3,409 people in Carroll County had tested positive and 207 cases were considered active. There have been 52 deaths attributed to Covid in the county, with 145 new cases between Aug. 1-9.
Bell said Carroll County recently saw 38 new cases in one day. “That is really high in our rural county,” he said.
Arkansas currently has the third highest number of new cases per population in the country, with only Texas and Florida reporting higher new cases, according to reports from Johns Hopkins University, which also mentions that Arkansas has the second highest rate of deaths per capita in the country.