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Citing Arkansas' decline in cases, its vaccination efforts and the precautions being taken by residents and businesses, Gov. Asa Hutchinson last week lifted almost all of the Department of Health's directives aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
The directives are now just “guidance,” aside from the mask mandate, which remains in effect.
What does it mean that directives are now guidance?
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Hutchinson has issued directives via executive orders that carried the power of law.
Some of the most prominent included limitations on restaurant capacity, restrictions on visits to long-term care facilities and rules for large gatherings.
The governor announced Friday that starting March 1, the directives would become “guidance.” In other words, they’re no longer requirements with the power of law but just suggestions to Arkansans and businesses on how to stay safe during the pandemic.
Any business (or school district or nursing home) that still wants to go by the guidance can do so — and multiple interviewed by the Democrat-Gazette said they plan to.
What’s happening with the mask mandate?
Hutchinson announced masks will continue to be required in public through at least March.
The requirement will end March 31 if, at that time, less than 10% of the state's coronavirus tests are positive over a rolling seven-day period and at least 7,500 tests are being conducted each day.
If fewer than 7,500 tests are being conducted a day, the mandate will be lifted if fewer than 750 patients with covid-19 are in hospitals.
Okay. What’s going on with vaccines?
Two more groups have become eligible for vaccines in the last week or so. Arkansans ages 65 or older are now eligible, as are food processing workers (including employees of poultry plants, many of which have suffered outbreaks during the pandemic).
Thousands of doses of the newly approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine are also on the way to Arkansas, state officials said Monday, probably by the end of the week.