A year after the first covid-19 patient in Arkansas was diagnosed, the number of people hospitalized in the state with the virus fell below 300 Thursday, for the first time since July 3.
The count of state cases rose by 340 -- the third daily increase in a row that was smaller than the one a week earlier.
The death toll from the virus, as tracked by the state Department of Health, rose by 28, to 5,410.
At a news conference in Pine Bluff marking the one-year anniversary of the first case, Gov. Asa Hutchinson drew parallels between the pandemic and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The first coronavirus case "became our 3/11," Hutchinson said at the event at Jefferson Regional Medical Center, where the case was diagnosed.
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"It was our challenge, it was our emergency," he said.
That first virus patient, James Black, attended the news conference and spoke in a recorded video along with his wife, Shaunika, about his ordeal, which included being in the hospital for several weeks, where he was placed on a ventilator, before he was released to a long-term care facility.
He said it took him about 3½ months to recover from his infection.
"When I first woke up, I looked at my arm, and it was so small, it brought tears to my eyes," Black said.
"I knew right then I had to push myself."
Thursday was also the anniversary of the day Hutchinson declared a public health emergency and the World Health Organization declared a pandemic.
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Hutchinson announced at the news conference that the state Department of Agriculture would give away 10,000 oak seedlings for people to plant in memory of someone lost to covid-19.
He said he and first lady Susan Hutchinson would plant one at the Governor's Mansion "in recognition of lives lost during this pandemic and the hope for the future that we all have."
The department said the seedlings will be available through its Forestry Division offices through March 24.
SPARE DOSES
Also on Thursday, CHI St. Vincent spokesman Joshua Cook said a shortage of people who had signed up to receive vaccine doses this week led the health system to give some doses to people who are ineligible under the current phase of the state vaccination plan.
Gerard Matthews, a 40-year-old freelance videographer, said he called a CHI St. Vincent number on Wednesday and was able to make appointments for him and his wife, Stephanie, to get their initial vaccine doses Thursday at a clinic in Little Rock.
He said he got the number from a friend who told him it was for a clinic that was making appointments for unused doses.
"I posted the number on Twitter and I literally haven't stopped getting notifications all day long," Matthews said. "Somebody just sent me a message. They were like, 'I've seen your tweet on Facebook in three different versions.' I guess people are taking pictures of it and posting it."
He said the clinic didn't ask him about his occupation and that neither he nor his wife, a 34-year-old consultant, qualify for the shots under Phase 1-B of the state vaccination plan.
"I wish that everybody that was eligible and was able to make an appointment was getting appointments made," Matthews said. "My thing is like, I want this to be over. I want everybody to get vaccinated.
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"If there are leftover vaccines, or appointments that aren't being made, and we can take one of those slots, then that's what we did."
Cook said the health system had nine spare doses this week because of a mismatch in the number of appointments and the doses that had to be given to avoid wasting any.
"I double checked on the registration list and we currently do not have a backlog of registrants who qualify under Phase 1-B," Cook said in an email.
"Because of dosage allotments in each vial, that would explain why the excess could be anticipated."
People can register for vaccinations at a CHI St. Vincent clinic by visiting chistvincent.com/getmyshot.
Central Arkansas residents can also call (501) 552-4536. Those who live in Hot Springs or southwest Arkansas can call (501) 622-6556.
"Right now, they're able to get folks right in for an appointment," Cook said.
CHI St. Vincent also is holding a walk-in vaccine clinic for those who are eligible from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at its clinic at 2500 E. Sixth St. in Little Rock.
State Epidemiologist Jennifer Dillaha said the Health Department would rather have shots go to people who are ineligible than to have doses go to waste.
"We trust the vaccinators to make a good-faith effort to vaccinate people in the priority groups for the phase, but we know that it's not always possible to do that, so we do not fault them for using the remaining doses in the vial for someone else," Dillaha said.
She said the shortage of appointments doesn't necessarily reflect a lack of demand from the eligible population but could be a result of CHI St. Vincent staff "not having their processes in place" as it has expanded the number of sites where it provides the shots.
SHOTS DELAYED
Dillaha said the state expansion of vaccine eligibility on Monday to include "essential priority workers," such as those at grocery stores, factories and other places, had delayed the administration of some vaccine doses as companies arrange clinics for their employees.
"I think after this week, we'll really see a big pickup in the number of doses that are administered," Dillaha said.
One vaccination event will be Tuesday at the state Capitol, where 1,500 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be available for lawmakers, who are considered "essential government workers" under the vaccine plan, and legislative staff members.
At its vaccine clinic at The Centre at University Park in Little Rock, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has been administering about 500 doses a day, including booster shots, UAMS spokeswoman Leslie Taylor said.
She said an eligible person could get an appointment at the clinic within a few days.
"Right now, we've had a good response with people wanting appointments, but we are concerned that it could level off a little bit, and we want to stay busy," Taylor said.
"We want to vaccinate as many people as we can."
UAMS was also planning a mobile clinic today at Shorter College in North Little Rock, where Taylor said it hoped to administer 200 doses.
At Hyde Pharmacy in Paragould, owner Steve Smoker said he's been scheduling vaccination clinics this week at work sites such as factories, a post office and Transportation Department offices.
"We're getting them done," he said. "It's going to take a little bit.
"Some of them have like 400 employees to get vaccinated, so it's time consuming, and it takes away a whole day of pharmacists here."
The work site clinics caused him to reschedule some appointments, which created openings allowing some people who walked in Thursday to get their shots without making an appointment.
Normally, people who make an appointment through the pharmacy's website can get a shot within about 10 days.
"I just think people, A., need to be patient because the phases are going to open up probably sooner than they think," he said.
Also people who make appointments at different sites should cancel the ones they no longer need after they are vaccinated, he said.
At its first in a series of planned no-appointment community vaccination clinics, held Thursday at the Conway County Fairgrounds in Morrilton, the Health Department administered shots to 302 people, department spokeswoman Danyelle McNeill said.
"They expected pretty much the exact number of people they got" and didn't run out of vaccine, she said in an email.
"There was enough for everyone," she said.
The department is planning to hold the clinics each week in each of its five public health regions.
SUPPLY TO INCREASE
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, providers participating in the vaccine effort coordinated by the state are expected to receive enough doses of Moderna's vaccine and the one developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to provide initial shots to 68,680 people, an increase of 2,340 doses from this week's allotment.
The amount of initial Moderna doses will stay the same, at 28,900, but the Pfizer doses will increase from 37,440 to 39,780.
After receiving its initial allotment of 24,400 Johnson & Johnson doses last week, the state isn't expecting any more of that vaccine until the week of March 28, Health Department spokesman Gavin Lesnick said.
Dillaha said the state is expecting to get "maybe a couple thousand" doses a week at first, with the amount rising during April to about 15,000 a week.
"We're hoping to use a lot of the Janssen vaccine for vaccinating different work sites," Dillaha said, referring to the drug company owned by Johnson & Johnson that makes the vaccine. "It's a one-dose vaccine, single dose vaccine, so that's convenient to those in off-site locations."
DOSES REPORTED
According to the Health Department, providers participating in the vaccination effort coordinated by the state had received 1,209,300 doses as of Thursday morning, up by 46,970 from the total as of a day earlier.
The doses those providers reported having administered, including booster shots, rose by 15,395, to 724,976.
In addition, Walmart, Walgreens, CVS and Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Network pharmacies had been allotted 152,150 doses,up by 16,600 from the total as of a day earlier.
The doses those providers reported having administered rose by 2,523, to 64,818.
According to the CDC, the number of Arkansans who had received at least one dose rose by 965, to 514,556, representing 17.1% of the state's population.
The number who were considered fully vaccinated, meaning they had received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, rose by 527, to 285,811, or 9.5% of the population.
Arkansas continued to rank 45th among states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of its residents who had received at least one vaccine dose.
It moved from No. 39 to 43 in the percentage of its residents who had been fully vaccinated.
Nationally, 19.3% of people had received at least one dose and 10.2% had been fully vaccinated.
ACTIVE CASES FALL
The number of people hospitalized with covid-19 in Arkansas fell by 23, to 278, the third daily decrease in a row.
After rising a day earlier, the number of virus patients on ventilators fell by five, to 67.
Dillaha said 12 of the deaths reported Thursday happened more than a month earlier, including four that were in late January and eight in early February.
The state cases that added included 250 that were confirmed through polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests.
The other 90 were "probable" cases, which include those identified through less-sensitive antigen tests.
The state's cumulative count of cases rose to 326,040.
That comprised 256,519 confirmed cases and 69,521 probable ones.
The number of cases that were considered active fell by 83, to 3,144, as 395 Arkansans were newly classified as having recovered.
Benton County had the largest number of new cases, 39, followed by Washington County, which had 38; Pulaski County, which had 33; Faulkner County, which had 22; and Craighead County, which had 17.
Among prison and jail inmates, the Health Department's count of cases rose by one.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Cindy Murphy said the number of cases at the Ouachita River Unit in Malvern rose by five, to 1,626.
That included 42 cases that were active as of Thursday.
(Because of differences in timing on reporting and data entry, the Corrections Department's numbers often differ from the Health Department's.)
The state death toll rose by 10, to 4,342, among confirmed cases and by 18, to 1,068, among probable cases.
Among nursing home and assisted living facility residents, the count of virus deaths rose by three, to 2,012.
The number of people who have ever been hospitalized in the state with the virus grew by 20, to 14,997.
The number of state virus patients who have ever been on a ventilator rose by four, to 1,542.
CORRECTION: According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, providers participating in the vaccine effort coordinated by the state are expected to receive enough doses of Moderna’s vaccine and the one developed by Pfizer and BioNTech next week to provide initial shots to 68,680 people, an increase of 2,340 from this week’s allotment. An earlier version of this story gave incorrect numbers for the initial doses and amount of the increase.
