Arkansas' weekly allotment of coronavirus vaccines for people who have not yet received shots is set to increase by 32% next week, to more than 95,000 doses, as manufacturers continue to ramp up production.
The increase comes as providers in some parts of the state report the supply of vaccine exceeding demand by people who are eligible, with hundreds of appointment slots at some pharmacies and mass vaccination clinics going unfilled.
Meanwhile, the downward trend in Arkansas' additional daily coronavirus cases continued Wednesday, with the average daily rise over a rolling seven-day period dropping below 200 for the first time since May.
"We continue to see some of the lowest numbers we've seen since the early days of this pandemic," Gov. Asa Hutchinson said in a statement.
"This trend can continue if we all do our part. If it's your turn, get vaccinated today for a healthier community."
The state's case count rose by 231, a slightly smaller increase than the one the day before and 94 fewer than were added the previous Wednesday, March 17.
As a result, the average daily increase over seven days fell from 213 as of Tuesday to 199 as of Wednesday.
Already at its lowest level since early June, the number of people hospitalized in the state fell by one, to 172.
The state's death toll from the virus, as tracked by the Department of Health, rose by 13, to 5,560.
Much of the increase in the state's weekly vaccine allotment will come from a greater number of doses of the single-shot vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Arkansas will receive 17,200 doses of that vaccine, up from the 3,400 it was allotted for this week.
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The state will also receive enough doses of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to provide initial shots to 49,140 people, an increase of 9,360 doses from this week's allotment.
The state's allocation of initial Moderna doses remained the same at 28,900.
Those doses don't include ones going to Walmart and Community Enhanced Services Network Pharmacies as part of the federal retail pharmacy program.
Those stores received a total 38,350 initial doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines this week and 1,000 Johnson & Johnson doses.
Information wasn't available Wednesday on how much they will get next week.
State Epidemiologist Jennifer Dillaha said the increased supply going to the state's program will allow it to provide doses to more medical clinics, which she said can help get the vaccine to patients with health conditions putting them at risk of covid-19 and address concerns of those who are reluctant to get the shots.
This week, the state expanded the number of independent clinics getting the vaccine from seven to about 30. Other clinics have also received doses from affiliated hospitals.
"It's really hard, I think, for people without a background in health care or medicine to sort through the information that's available out there and understand what's important, what's not, what's accurate and what's not," Dillaha said.
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"If they can talk with a health care provider, their doctor or a nurse that they trust they'll be able to more easily sort through their questions, their concerns and have them addressed."
DEMAND FALLS
Just over a week after Hutchinson started Phase 1-C of the vaccination plan, some pharmacists continued to report waning demand for the shots.
At Smith Drug and Compounding in Hot Springs, owner Lance Smith said he can vaccinate about 250 people a day, but about half of his appointment slots are going unfilled.
"We have lots of vaccine and need more arms to put them in," Smith said.
He had hoped to provide initial Pfizer shots to 1,000 people at a mass clinic at a church Saturday, but only 250 people signed up.
"We're just definitely not seeing the excitement from 1-C that we thought we were going to have, not like 1-A and 1-B for sure," he said.
He said he hoped some of the slowdown was from people traveling over spring break and that demand will pick up next week.
He said he's also hoping Hutchinson will lift the eligibility criteria, making the shots available to all people 16 and older.
"I think the easiest messaging is going to be, 'Everyone's eligible,'" Smith said. "Once we can push something out and say, anybody that wants their vaccine come in and get it – I think we're there, or at least Central Arkansas is."
In the meantime, those who are eligible can sign up for appointments on the pharmacy's website, smithdrugandcompounding.com.
"We have [available] appointments today. We have appointments Friday. We have appointments Monday," Smith said.
"We were going to do a Saturday clinic, but after last Saturday, there's just not the demand there."
The start of Phase 1-C made the vaccines available to people 16-64 with health conditions putting them at risk of severe illness from the virus and to certain types of "essential workers," including those with jobs in food service, transportation, the media and other industries.
Those eligible in this phase include prison and jail inmates and others living in "high-risk" settings, such as student housing and group homes.
Others who became eligible under previous phases include people 65 and older, health care workers, residents of long-term-care facilities and front-line essential workers, such as those in factories and grocery stores.
Leland Stice, owner of the Doctor's Orders pharmacies in Pine Bluff, White Hall and Star City, said he filled the 150 appointment slots he had for a Johnson & Johnson vaccine clinic Wednesday morning, but 80 of the 400 slots he had for a Pfizer clinic went unfilled.
That was better than a typical day, when only 70% to 75% of the available appointments for the clinics he holds in Pine Bluff have been taken.
Usually, when a new phase opens, "we see those clinics fill up real fast, and they haven't been," Stice said. "The younger group doesn't seem to be as interested in getting the shot."
Not all pharmacies were having trouble filling their appointment slots, however.
When Medical Arts Pharmacy in Fayetteville started taking appointments on its website for this week, the available slots filled up within two hours, pharmacist Julie Stewart said.
On Wednesday, it started booking appointments for next week, and by the afternoon they were almost all taken.
Including booster shots, "our goal is to do 1,000 shots a week, and we're exceeding that this week by a long-shot," Stewart said.
Eric Crumbaugh, director of clinical business development for Little Rock pharmacy chain Express Rx, said demand was strong for the shots in Hot Springs, Hope and Prescott, but less so in Little Rock, where more providers are offering them.
At a weekly mass clinic at a church in southwest Little Rock, most of the 400 appointment slots were filled last week, and an additional 100 shots went to people without appointments.
On Wednesday, however, the company's website showed dozens of available appointments for this week's clinic, which is being held today.
"It's definitely a drop-off from last week," Crumbaugh said.
"This is what we've seen every time the governor has opened up a larger population for eligibility for the vaccine. We see a pretty big rush for the first couple of days after that, and then it kind of starts to slow down a little bit."
Leslie Taylor, a spokeswoman for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said the university has been filling up the available appointments at its vaccination clinic in Little Rock, but someone making an appointment could get in "in the next day or so."
At its vaccination clinic in Jonesboro, St. Bernards Medical Center has been setting aside doses that it administers to walk-in patients for the past three weeks.
Hospital spokesman Mitchell Nail said that started because not all of the appointments were being filled but has continued as "a service that has been accepted well by the community."
"Honestly we have a lot of access to the vaccine here in Northeast Arkansas, and I think more or less education is really what we need to be focusing on," Nail said.
Hutchinson said Tuesday that it's still too early to make the shots available to all adults, saying people are still having difficulty getting appointments for the vaccines in some areas, including Northwest Arkansas.
In a letter Monday, U.S. Rep. Steve Womack of Rogers asked a federal official to increase the amount of vaccine going to that region, saying it was falling behind the rest of the state.
According to the Health Department's online coronavirus dashboard, about 22.1% of residents age 16 and older in the Arkansas Hospital Association's northwest region had received at least one vaccine dose as of Wednesday.
Statewide, 28.3% of residents age 16 and older had received at least one dose.
"We have more work to do up there," Dillaha said. "My understanding is that this next week, there will be adjustments in the amounts going to Northwest Arkansas to try to bring those rates up."
DOSES REPORTED
According to the Health Department, providers participating in the vaccination effort coordinated by the state had received 1,529,320 doses as of Wednesday morning, up 2,100 from the total as of a day earlier.
The doses those providers reported having administered, including booster shots, rose by 19,031, to 893,325.
In addition, Walmart, Walgreens, CVS and Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Network pharmacies had been allotted 230,580 doses through federal programs, up by 1,000 from the total as of a day earlier.
The doses those businesses reported having administered rose by 3,604, to 108,094.
According to the CDC, the number of Arkansans who had received at least one vaccine dose rose Wednesday by 13,575, to 694,124, representing about 23% of the state's population.
The number who had been fully vaccinated rose by 7,392, to 357,343, or about 11.8% of the state's population.
Among the states and District of Columbia, Arkansas moved from No. 43 to No. 42 in the percentage of its residents who had received at least one vaccine dose.
It remained at No. 46 in the percentage of its residents who had been fully vaccinated.
COVID UNIT CLOSED
The decline in hospitalizations led UAMS Medical Center this week to return its 30-bed covid-19 unit to its former purpose: providing care for postsurgical and solid-organ transplant patients.
Taylor said the move was made after the number of patients dropped into the single digits for several days before rebounding to 12, including three who were in intensive care as of Wednesday.
Hospital CEO Steppe Mette said the covid-19 patients will continue to be kept in negative-airflow rooms, and the staff will continue putting on protective gear before entering a patient's room and taking it off before leaving.
The difference is that the staff will care for those patients as well as others.
"None of the care details change," he said.
At one time, he said the hospital also had a second 30-bed covid-19 unit and had plans to double-up patients in rooms if it became necessary.
More recently, however, "there were so few patients in the covid unit, it was like a ghost town," he said.
He said he's also heard from other hospitals that have disbanded their covid-19 units.
"That's a real positive sign for everybody to be happy about," he said.
ACTIVE CASES FALL
After dropping a day earlier, the number of the state's virus patients who were on ventilators rose by three, to 43.
The number of covid-19 patients in intensive care units as of 2 p.m. remained unchanged at 74.
Dillaha said five of the deaths reported Wednesday happened more than a month ago. One happened in mid-January and four were in early to mid-February.
The cases that were added to the state's tallies included 134 that were confirmed through polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests.
The other 97 were "probable" cases, which include those identified through less-sensitive antigen tests.
The state's cumulative count of cases rose to 329,177.
That comprised 258,517 confirmed cases and 70,660 probable ones.
The number of cases that were considered active fell by 135, to 2,128, as recoveries outpaced new cases.
Sebastian County had the largest number of new cases, 42, followed by Washington County with 29; Pulaski County with 26; Benton County with 17; and Baxter, Crawford and Faulkner counties, each with seven.
Among prison and jail inmates, the Health Department's count of cases rose by four.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Cindy Murphy said the number of cases among inmates rose by four, to 94, at the East Central Arkansas Community Correction Center in West Memphis.
Ten of the cases were active as of Wednesday, she said.
The state's death toll rose by nine to, 4,442 among confirmed cases and by four, to 1,118 among probable cases.
Among nursing home and assisted-living facility residents, the count of virus deaths rose by three, to 2,056.
The number of people who have ever been hospitalized in the state with covid-19 grew by eight, to 15,244.
The number of state virus patients who have ever been on ventilators with covid-19 rose by three, to 1,572.