An additional six people were tested by the Arkansas Department of Health over the weekend and were found not to have the new coronavirus, bringing to 12 the number of people who had tested negative for the virus as of Monday morning.
So far, no one in Arkansas has tested positive for the coronavirus, but 100 people in the state were under 14-day quarantines at home after returning to Arkansas from countries where the virus is spreading.
Also on Monday, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said on Twitter that he had confirmed two people from Arkansas were aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship that docked in Oakland, Calif., after two passengers and 19 crew members tested positive for covid-19, the respiratory illness associated with the virus.
Hutchinson said the two Arkansans "are not symptomatic."
"We are working on arrangements to repatriate them to the United States with necessary home isolation," Hutchinson said.
In a phone interview Monday, Don Stair of Searcy identified the two people as himself and his wife, Eileen. The couple had been on a cruise to Hawaii for their 34th wedding anniversary.
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"It will be an anniversary trip we will definitely not forget," said Don Stair, 70.
The virus, which emerged in late December in Wuhan, China, spreads much like the flu, through respiratory droplets emitted when people sneeze or cough, health officials have said.
Illnesses from the virus have ranged from mild to severe, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms include fever, cough and shortness of breath.
Concern about the virus prompted a Des Arc health clinic to close for the day on Monday "out of an abundance of caution" after a visit by a patient who had flu-like symptoms, a spokesman said.
The clinic, part of the federally funded ARCare community health center, rescheduled all its afternoon appointments after a clinician referred the patient to the state Department of Health for further testing.
ARCare spokesman Winston Collier declined to say if the concern was sparked by the patient's travel history or other factors, citing the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a privacy law.
Health Department spokeswoman Meg Mirivel said any specific information about a confirmed case -- such as its location -- will be disclosed based on the need related to that patient's history.
"The main thing we'll be looking at is what's the risk to the general public," Mirivel said.
During a joint meeting of the Legislature's House and Senate committees on Public Health, Welfare and Labor, Health Department Secretary Nate Smith said the department is "aggressively monitoring" travelers who return to Arkansas from affected countries, but he acknowledged it may not be aware of all of them.
Jennifer Dillaha, the department's medical director for immunizations and outbreak response, said the department is notified by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency of travelers arriving from China and Iran, the two countries from which the United States has temporarily banned visits by foreign citizens.
The Health Department is not notified of travelers to Italy, South Korea or Japan, but it asks people returning from those countries to contact the department, Dillaha said.
"It's quite possible someone could return from Italy to Oklahoma and drive across the border and elect not to inform us, and then we would not know unless they became symptomatic," Smith said. "This is not a perfect system, but this is what we're able to do at this point to try to monitor the high-risk individuals that we know of."
Dillaha said almost all of the returning travelers who were asked to submit to home quarantines did so voluntarily. In two cases, Smith issued a mandatory order, she said.
To help protect the elderly and people with medical conditions, the Health Department and state Department of Human Services on Monday directed long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes and assisted living facilities, to question all visitors about their international travel and possible contact with infected people within the previous 14 days.
The visitors must also be screened for symptoms such as a cough or sore throat and have their temperature taken. People with a temperature above 100.4 degrees must not be allowed to enter the facility.
Facility employees must also have their temperature taken before every shift.
In the phone interview from aboard the Grand Princess, Don Stair said he and his wife expected to be able to disembark within the next two days.
The couple will then be flown to either Lackland Air Force Base in Texas or Dobbins Air Force Base in Georgia, where they will be tested for the coronavirus and quarantined for 14 days, he said.
He said they have not yet been tested for the virus because they haven't had any symptoms.
Passengers aboard the ship have been confined to their rooms since Wednesday, Stair said. He said the couple had been passing the time watching movies, sitting on the balcony, and "just taking naps and relaxing."
The cruise is their 23rd. They're planning to take their next one, to the Caribbean, in May.
"We're hoping a lot of this virus thing will blow over good so we can make that trip," Stair said.
Information for this article was contributed by Kat Stromquist of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Section on 03/10/2020