State virus cases rise by 220

Shots dip with pause in 1-dose vaccine; variants spreading

Amanda White, an EMS specialist with the Arkansas Department of Health, gives Michael Kerr a shot of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine Thursday, April 1, 2021, at the Little Rock Compassion Center. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)
Amanda White, an EMS specialist with the Arkansas Department of Health, gives Michael Kerr a shot of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine Thursday, April 1, 2021, at the Little Rock Compassion Center. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)

The pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccinations continued rippling through Arkansas on Wednesday amid signs that the state's overall vaccination effort is slowing.

In the seven-day span ending Wednesday, state Department of Health figures indicated that 148,789 vaccine doses were administered, down from a record 161,141 the previous week.

The drop from one week to the next in doses administered, including second doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, was the biggest since early March.

Meanwhile, the state's count of coronavirus cases rose Wednesday by 220 -- the first daily increase in four days that was smaller than the one a week earlier.

After falling the previous two days, however, the number of people hospitalized in the state with covid-19 rose by three, to 151.

The state death toll from the virus, as tracked by the Department of Health, rose by seven, to 5,680.

Also Wednesday, state Epidemiologist Jennifer Dillaha provided additional details about faster-spreading variants of the coronavirus that have been identified in the state.

At least five variant cases each have been identified in Benton and Miller counties, she said, and between one and four variant cases each have been found in Pulaski County, Washington County and nine other counties.

The total number of covid-19 cases caused by variants in the state is unknown because only a small percentage of specimens are tested for that.

"We feel good about the protection the vaccines can provide for these variants, and we would like for as many people as possible to get vaccinated before any of these variants become predominant," Dillaha said.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Tuesday announced that Arkansas would follow a recommendation by federal officials to pause the use of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine after reports that six women in other states who received it developed rare blood clots.

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The development prompted the Health Department to cancel 10 Johnson & Johnson vaccination clinics that had been planned at its local health units Tuesday.

Dillaha said the department canceled six other clinics that had been planned for Wednesday and 10 that had been set for today and Friday.

But she said larger clinics, staffed with help from the Arkansas National Guard, went forward Wednesday at units in Pine Bluff, El Dorado, West Memphis and Fort Smith using Pfizer or Moderna instead of Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

She said she didn't expect any of the department's clinics to be canceled after Friday.

"We should be able to provide Pfizer vaccine to all of these local health units to continue with their vaccination efforts in the next day or two," Dillaha said.

OTHER CANCELLATIONS

Saint Mark Baptist Church in Little Rock said on its Facebook page Wednesday that a Johnson & Johnson clinic that had been scheduled for Saturday would be canceled.

It included a link to Kavanaugh Pharmacy's website, where users can schedule appointments for the Pfizer vaccine.

"Appointments are available Monday-Saturday and are generally available the next business day," the church said in the post.

A Johnson & Johnson clinic scheduled for Friday at the Don Owen Sports Center in Conway was also canceled.

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The Conway Fire Department said in a Facebook post that people could sign up to receive Pfizer shots at a clinic at the same location the next day by visiting the city's website, conwayarkansas.gov/covid19.

Little Rock-based Baptist Health postponed "a few small upcoming community clinics" where Johnson & Johnson would have been used, spokesman Cara Wade said in an email.

But, she said, "no one had pre-registered so no one had to be canceled."

She said the pause on Johnson & Johnson vaccinations hadn't affected appointments for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines at Baptist Health locations across the state.

People can register for the shots using an online MyChart account or by calling (888) 227-8478.

Michael Butler, who owns several pharmacies around the state, had planned to use the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to hold clinics in southwest Arkansas over the next few weeks.

"We'll be able to use the other vaccines, but it requires two trips," he said.

He said the change also might cause some of the clinics to be delayed while he works out the logistics.

At Medi-Quik Pharmacy in Ozark, pharmacist Robert Woolsey said the pause hasn't "made a huge impact on us here, because we still give a lot of Moderna."

"The only people that were getting the Johnson & Johnson really were people that were drawn to the one-shot-and-done marketing," Woolsey said.

He said the store administers 100 to 200 shots a day, including second doses of Moderna. It added staff to handle the volume and hasn't required appointments for the past month or so, he said.

"If you walk in the door, you're going to get one pretty quick," he said.

DOSES TO INCREASE

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Arkansas will get enough of the Pfizer vaccine next week to provide initial doses to 44,460 people, up from 40,950 this week.

The state's allocation of initial Moderna doses will increase by 2,400, to 32,600.

The agency didn't list information on Arkansas' Johnson & Johnson allocation, although Dillaha has said it's expected to decrease from 5,200 doses this week to about 1,700.

Pharmacists and other providers have reported having more than enough of Pfizer and Moderna to meet the demand.

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hoped to administer 1,000 initial Pfizer doses at an event Saturday at Simmons Bank Arena in North Little Rock, but only gave about 700.

Leslie Taylor, spokeswoman for UAMS, said the university administered an additional 250 doses the same day at Saint Mark.

At UAMS' vaccination clinic in Little Rock, more than 100 of the 600 possible appointment slots each day have been going unfilled, she said.

UAMS' mobile health unit also administered 221 Pfizer doses Monday at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville, 18 at the Conway Human Development Center the same day and 170 at a clinic in Clarksville on Tuesday, she said.

The Northwest Arkansas Council, a business group, was offering 2,500 appointment slots today for its weekly Pfizer clinic at the Northwest Arkansas Mall in Fayetteville.

Only 450 people of those were taken as of Wednesday afternoon, council spokesman Nate Green said.

He said 368 people had signed up to receive shots Friday at the council's other weekly clinic, at J.B. Hunt's headquarters in Lowell, where the council hoped to administer 1,500 to 1,600 doses.

Walk-ins are welcome at both events, he said.

"I think we're going to decide after tomorrow what the future holds," Green said.

Changes under consideration include holding the clinics on evenings or weekends, having one weekly event instead of two or discontinuing the events altogether.

"It's a heavy lift for us to build all those volunteers, and J.B. Hunt has donated their space and is giving us lots of human capital to put these on," Green said.

"If we're not getting big numbers through there, we kind of feel bad asking them to keep doing this."

According to the CDC, the number of Arkansans who had received at least one vaccine dose rose Wednesday by 12,452, to 965,352, representing about 32% of the state's population.

The number who were fully vaccinated rose by 13,679, to 590,188, or 19.6% of the population.

Among the states and District of Columbia, Arkansas continued to rank 43rd in the percentage of its residents who had received at least one vaccine dose and 47th in the percentage who had been fully vaccinated.

VARIANT WORRIES

With new cases on the rise in the country as a whole, a White House report for at least the past two weeks has listed Arkansas as having the lowest number of new cases per capita in the country.

The most recent edition, dated Friday and released earlier this week, also listed Arkansas as having the third-lowest percentage of polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests that were positive during the week that ended April 6 and the fourth-lowest number of hospital admissions linked to covid-19 per 100 inpatient beds during the week that ended April 7.

The state's rate of less than one covid-19 death per 100,000 residents during the week that ended April 8 was the country's 22nd-lowest, according to the report.

Dillaha said she's concerned that a resurgence is possible, however. She noted that the state's active case total is "not really going down anymore" and that seven counties had 20 or more new cases Wednesday.

The largest increases were in Washington County, with 79 new cases; Pulaski County, with 58; and Benton County, with 50.

More-transmissible variants of the coronavirus from California have been identified in all three of those counties, she said.

In Benton County, tests have also confirmed the presence of the variant from the United Kingdom, which is thought to be more lethal than other variants, as well as the variant from Brazil, she said.

She said variants of concern have also been found in Faulkner and Jefferson counties, which had 20 or more new cases Wednesday.

"If we just identify one case of a variant in a county, then I think we can assume it's circulating in that county," Dillaha said.

The variants have yet to be found in the other two counties, Craighead and Lonoke, that had 20 or more new cases, she said.

A complete list of counties where variants have been identified wasn't available from the Health Department on Wednesday.

VENTILATOR USE UP

Wednesday's increase in cases was smaller by four than the one a day earlier and by 24 than the one the previous Wednesday, April 7.

The average number of cases added to the state's tallies over a rolling seven-day period fell by about three, to 166.

That remained above the low this year, set during the week ending April 2, when an average of 151 cases a day were added.

The number of virus patients who were on ventilators rose Wednesday for the second straight day, going from 19 as of Tuesday to 20.

The number of coronavirus patients who were in intensive care as of 2 p.m. rose by eight, to 57.

The cases that were added to the state's tallies included 131 that were confirmed through PCR tests.

The other 89 were "probable" cases, which include those identified through less-sensitive antigen tests.

The state's cumulative count of state cases rose to 332,666.

That comprised 260,827 confirmed cases and 71,839 probable ones.

The number of cases that were considered active rose by 52, to 1,715, as new cases outpaced recoveries.

The Health Department didn't report any increase in its count of cases among prison and jail inmates.

Department of Corrections spokeswoman Cindy Murphy said her department also didn't have any new inmate cases Wednesday.

The state's death toll rose by two, to 4,518, among confirmed cases and by five, to 1,162, among probable cases.

The state's count of deaths among nursing home and assisted living facility residents remained at 2,067.

The number of people who have ever been hospitalized in the state with covid-19 grew by 26, to 15,580.

The number of the state's virus patients who have ever been on a ventilator with covid-19 rose by one, to 1,598.

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