Eddie, I hear you're going to get honored today in the house. Are you Congratulations.
Thank you for joining me for today's COVID-19 weekly update. I'm pleased to be joined by Dr. Romero, the Department of Health, also by Dr. Ivy Pfeffer of the Department of Education Secretary Mike Preston of Commerce. And of course, we have Colonel Rob Ator. here who is our program manager for vaccine distribution. First, let me comment on our state revenue report that was released today. Our state monthly revenue report continues to be good news for Arkansas. And it shows that our revenues continue to exceed our forecast in both income tax and sales tax collections. We are now seven months into the fiscal year, and our surplus over forecast is over $400 million. This means people are returning to work and showing confidence in the economy. And it's my hope and expectation that our economy will continue to be robust in the coming months as well. And for the reason that we have a strong surplus here, the fact that we have a recovering economy that's strong, I would urge the White House and Congress to compromise as they consider the COVID relief package that's begins that $1.9 trillion. And asked because the economy is expected to grow this year at over three and a half percent. And we're going to recover from the slowdown in the economy because of COVID. Without that necessary massive infusion of money. If we go big, then we go big into debt for our nation and for the next generation. And my encouragement is not just go big, but go reasonable. And I think our economy in Arkansas, and the surplus that I've indicated, demonstrate that's a reasonable course, for Congress and the White House to consider. Let me make a couple of announcements today. First of all, I'm not extending the 11pm curfew on bars, it expires on February three we had that was important to have through Christmas and New Year's, our cases and hospitalizations are down. And so I've made that judgment and wanted to give that notice today. I also let's go ahead and look at the cases for the day. If we look at this, and we'll just going to look at it quickly in this summary fashion first. And we see that our total cases for the last 24 hours yesterday is 1510 cases. And that's based upon about 7000 in testing both PCR and antigen testing that you see at the bottom. If you look at our active cases are down by 334. If you look at the hospitalizations, they're down by 20. And that continues to be good news. I think it's because of both people being careful following guidelines as well as some improved therapeutics and hospital practices. That's really applauding our health care workers and the job that they're doing. Regrettably, again, we have 44 deaths is Dr. Romero, who wins is going to slow down because you see our cases slow down. And that's the saddest thing is I look at that number every day. And I continue to see our Kansans and families impacted in such a devastating way because of COVID-19. And it's a constant reminder that we all have a responsibility. And it's important to our families to follow the guidelines to be careful. And to make sure we do all we can to reduce the cases. If you look at the vaccines, which is the next graphic, we continue to do well, in getting the vaccines in the arms of our Kansans. The doses are saved on the left, you can see we've received 486,000 doses, we've given out 301,000 so that's 61.9% of those that are on the state program. In the last 24 hours, you can see that we've received 15,900 doses. And so obviously, they get in it takes a while to get them out. People asked me well Where's the other 39% of the doses? Well, some are reserved For second doses that will be given out that takes a little bit longer to get those scheduled. And we continue to work to increase that percentage, the whole team at the Department of Health and Colonel aiders working very hard on that in our pharmacy and our hospital partners as well. In terms of the federal program, this is a slower process. And this again, this is our CVS Walgreen partners. And they are the fourth what's allocated to them covers both a second doses and a third follow up clinic as well. And so that's a slower process, getting them out. But they do have vaccines that are available for the 70 Plus, to a certain extent in those pharmacies. And so we're still in phase one B, which we're focusing on our cans in 70 years of age and older, our education workers K through 12, higher education and childcare. We're working very hard.
I hope that soon we'll be comfortable in saying that we've completed our education, our teachers, but we've got some more work to do to make sure that they have the access, and they have the clinics that are set up to accomplish that. We have virtually completed our long term care facilities, although they'll be going back again for second rounds and follow up to make sure everybody has that access. And so we're doing well, but we have to do better because lives are at stake. And that leads me to a couple of announcements today related to vaccine distribution. First of all, I was on a call earlier today with Jeff science, who's the director of the Coronavirus task force for President Biden. And all of his task force include the CDC director. And this morning, I learned in Arkansas received an additional 5% increase in our vaccine supplies beginning this week. That is on top of the 16% increase in the supply of vaccines that happened last week that I announced. And actually those have been received this week. And we've been assured that that will be that supply chain will be good for three weeks for our planning purposes. They continue to try to give us three weeks out information that's very helpful as we plan for how we can best distribute these vaccines in a fair way. Second, over and above our state allocation each week, our state allocation each week, I've spoken to Walmart as well as with the Coronavirus Task Force, and Walmart as a preferred federal supplier will receive approximately 10,000 doses beginning on February 11. To be distributed and available in over 60 stores across Arkansas. This is the beginning of that process, I want to caution everyone that they will start receiving them most likely on February 11. So it's that week timeframe that they will begin the process of getting those doses out. And again, this is over and above our state allocation. And we're delighted to have that partnership that will be another source of vaccine administration for our 70 plus and others that want to utilize that service and opportunity. Let me quickly go through the graphs just to show the trend lines. And these are all going in the right direction right now. seven day rolling average of combining cases, you can see that the trend line is good. The next one, hospitalizations are down. We haven't been that low and hospitalization since back in late November. And then if you go to the active cases is down trend lines down. We continue to make progress on that. The next one, you can see the seven day rolling average of positivity. And this is PCR and antigen tests in Arkansas from August to the present. And we're getting closer back down to that 10% mark. We're not there yet. But we're getting closer to it. We continue to make progress. And this is encouraging. I believe and this is the final one for our graphs today that this shows a trend line in our different public health regions. And while we are all going the wrong direction, now they're going in a more favorable direction. Obviously the most dramatic are the top three, which includes Northwest. In the orange, the yellow is the central and the blue is north east. And so we've made progress in all those areas. I want to thank our Kansans for coming Anyone you take COVID-19 seriously being a part of the solution and supporting every each of our neighbors as we try to get through this together. And with that, let me first bring up Dr. Romero for his comments.
Thank you, Governor. So as the governor has pointed out, we're going in the right direction with regard to cases and hospitalizations. And we were making good headway on that. We really are increasing our reserve. If we have a problem later in the in the year with regard to variants and increased transmissibility. At the same time, I want to remind everyone that even though we are making improvements, it's not a time to back off on the three things that we think are the most important for physical mitigation of infection, and that's wearing the mask, washing our hands and keeping distance that really is what's going to bring this under control, and really is what's going to help us with the variance. The number of hospitalizations is decreasing. I think that's a combination of a number of factors. Again, the public taking this seriously, the fact that we're using Now, a lot of monoclonal antibody to prevent, to treat and to prevent hospitalizations. And I think now the beginning of our immunizations. I want to remember I want to make a point of reminding everybody that Dr. Fauci and others have warned about the resurgence or this resurgence of variant viruses in the communities. They are here. We don't know that we have them yet here in Arkansas, I suspect they are, we just need to find them. But once they take hold, they will become the dominant the dominant virus in our community, they spread easier in some of these from different parts of the world have some changes that allow them not to be responding appropriately to therapy. Lastly, I want to remind everyone about the vaccines, when offered, I encourage you to take them, we are only going to be able to get past this pandemic, if we have enough immunity. And when you're offered the vaccine, I want to reinforce the fact that the vaccine is safe. It's been studied. It's been studied across all groups, and it is effective. All of the major vaccines prevent death in 100%. They decrease hospitalizations significantly. So these are very effective vaccines. Lastly, the final thing I wanted to tell you about was the possibility of a third vaccine that will be available as early as this month. And that is the Johnson and Johnson or Janssen vaccine, which is a single dose vaccine. We're hopeful that the FDA will approve it and the ACI p will give recommendations for its use shortly and will have even more vaccine than we have now. So I'll stop here and turn it back over to the governor. Thank you.
Secretary Mike Preston has worked hard with his team, getting out the pandemic unemployment assistance. It's a constant challenge with the federal guidelines. But Mike, thanks for your leadership on this. I know you've got some announcements that you need to make.
Thank you, Governor and thank you Dr. Romero, for your leadership and to the media yesterday really appreciate the the coverage. On the P ua pandemic unemployment assistance, it's really helpful for us to get as much factual information out as we can so really appreciate the coverage we had and hopefully, our Kansans were able to utilize that information and again, appreciate the DW s team for working so hard and diligently to get the system and all the other systems up and running and continued running. It's our IT team, our UI team. And of course, our local offices who interface with our Kansans day in and day out really appreciate all the hard work. So as we discussed yesterday, I'll just give you kind of an update and some of the follow on questions that our office continues to receive. But the PA system did reopen on Friday, January 29. after undergoing updates to reflect the new program requirements under the continued Assistance Act. These incore included some 40 additional changes, including the ID verification. This was to help us better catch fraud on the front end, rather than in the middle of the process when we'd have to stop and do further analyzation of each of the analyze each of the claims that slow down the process. So we'll have to build this new system. It'll help us catch fraud on the front end. The good news is on that first weekend, we sent over 4900 payments. Additionally, last night we had 9800 payments, so we're up to a little over 14,700 are Kansans in the PA system that have been paid for these first couple of days. We anticipate more going out today and over the course of the next several days. We have sent 60,000 emails to those eligible and are continuing to file weekly claims. What is very important if you're one of those 60,000 that you have received the email to click on the link within the email To upload your ID and your additional documentation, each URL within that email is unique to the individual. So if you just respond to the email, that's not necessarily how you need to submit your information, we needed to go to this uploadable site via the link. So that's where you're running into some issues, or we're seeing folks just responding to the email, we're not getting that information. That way, we need you to click on the link in there, do the ID verification, and then continue weekly claims and you'll get processed for your payments. For those who have done that. And now ca flagged for review. Give that a day or two and our system is catching up with this massive amount that are coming in. There were some glitches, obviously those first couple nights we're getting payments out, we feel like we have that corrected. So it should catch up in real time now. But again, if you got that flagged for review, those should be catching up in the next day or two. I do want to emphasize on who should file for pandemic unemployment assistance and the P ua. So the 60,000 I've talked about are ones that have been approved. So they have gone through the process. They were a gig economy, a worker, independent contractor, or self employed, they've been in their business was impacted because of the pandemic they had been approved. And those are processing. What we're seeing now is a shift of individuals from unemployment insurance from the traditional over to the pandemic unemployment assistance. So once you've exhausted those benefits, then you're eligible to qualify and file for the P ua system. However, because of the new bill passed by Congress, that continued Assistance Act, it added additional weeks to the panda to pandemic emergency unemployment compensation. So there's additional weeks that you'll need to go back and verify and utilize those weeks and exhaust that fully before you're able to move to P ua. So if you're getting that message that you're ineligible for p ua indeed need to go back to the process and file for those claims to traditional UI and the extended benefits. And once those are exhausted, you can move to the P UI. Obviously, it's a lot of information is probably a lot of questions, the phone number is up on the screen 844-908-2178 call and go through the option. Our folks can talk you through that. There's also the website where you can submit a lot of that information. So and let me switch gears and go to the next slide. And talking a little bit about fraud. As I mentioned, we're trying to mitigate that more on the front end is the requirements for the new PA system. Going back to the fraudulent claims that took place over the course of the summer and into the fall. It's now that time of the year we're looking at tax documentation coming in and 1099 are going out. And if you are receiving these 1099 this is what you need to pay attention to. So we're working diligently to continue to match police reports with fraud claim reports to the IRS for that prior to the IRS deadline which is later this month. If you receive a 1099 in the mail for fraudulent unemployment claim, and you have already submitted a police report, a corrected 1099 form will be sent to you. Once a police report has been processed by Avi AWS Department of Workforce Services, you'll receive that in the mail. Now due to the sheer volume, we're still processing the police reports that have been submitted. If you have not been provided a copy of your police report or not provided it please submit a copy to the link here on the screen at Ws internal audit at Arkansas Gov as soon as possible. The only way we can remove a fraudulent charge from your social security number is by receiving a police report from your local law enforcement agency will report the 1099 information to the IRS by the end of the month is required. So if you would we're asking by no later than February 12 of this month. If you have a 1099 and information, please submit that to dw s police reports received from this date after require revised 1099 information be submitted the IRS which could impact the processing of your income tax return. So in order to not that not to be a problem, please submit that information along with your police report to internal audit at AWS by February 12th. And there's additional guidance on the IRS website if you want information about the 1099 or the 1099 g which is the corrected form. Again, appreciate your patience on this and we're processing these as quickly as we can. But we need you to submit those police reports so we can fully take care of it on our end and you're not sending 1099 with incorrect information. Thank you, Governor.
And finally, Before we take questions, Dr. Ivy Pfeffer is here, the Department of Education for a brief report.
Thank you, Governor, and it really is good to be here today. And almost daily. I receive communication from educators and parents from all across the state and who share questions worries and concerns about their student's educational experiences. Long before the first day of school started in August, we were all super focused on not only how to make the school year possible, but also on how to make it successful. Last week I received a picture from a kindergarten class in Springdale, Arkansas with students who are celebrating their 100th day of school. The term first 100 days often refers to the beginning of a politician's term in office and is usually defined by bold, definitive actions that they take to fulfill goals. This picture reminded me of how the concept of 100 days has come to hold special meaning for students and Arkansas schools, because it signals that they've met important learning goals during their first 100 days. Like many of you, I've had the opportunity to see my children get to participate in 100 Day celebrations at schools, I can remember from the collections and projects that they did, and took with them. And for schools all across the state that 100 Day celebration is a bonus. That's a measure of success, that I think we all have to really think about and be proud of, because it's not a success that students all across the nation are getting to experience. It's because of the leadership from our governor, from other state officials and from our schools that our students have had the possibility to have learning with relatively few interruptions. Some really important data 74% of schools and 56% of districts have not had to implement large scale modifications this school year. These efforts have made it possible for us to provide students with a stable and viable option to meet their learning and social needs. While the year has been in many, in many respects, not a typical school year. And in spite of this, I would suggest that it's never been more appropriate nor more important to acknowledge and to celebrate the successes of our students during these 100 day events. So when we think about how do we do this? How do we recognize this success? How do we support them? In the past week, we've been part of a lot of conversations around student testing and school accountability. Every school in the state has faced unprecedented challenges that began in the spring and if continued throughout this school year, as the public health community tackles the questions around short and long term effects of COVID-19. educators and educators and policymakers are faced with understanding the pandemics impact on student learning. To understand this, we must have information. And this information comes from measures like state testing, which typically occurs in the spring of every year. Because of these questions, it is important to clarify that based on information from the US Department of Education, there is no waiver from the year end assessments for the 2021 school year. While this topic has been discussed by some states, particularly those that have not returned to on site learning, there is no process to seek a waiver from testing. The results from the test will let educators and parents know how much students have learned throughout the school year, and whether they are on track to achieve the success they need later in life. This testing is no less critical now than in any other year. So let's talk about what testing is not. The focus for Arkansas spring testing this year is not on the accountability piece of federal and state testing requirements. But on the data that we need to inform educational leaders, policymakers and families about the impact of COVID-19 on the academic growth of our students. The IDP supports legislation to waive the ADA f rating scale for the 2020 2021 school year. This effort is not to minimize the importance of results, but to support that the results should be used as a flashlight to highlight opportunities for improvement. It's critical that we make the most out of every learning opportunity during the next few months to continue what we began in August, and aggressive and coordinated assault against the virus's attempt to negatively impact student learning opportunities. And this is what I hope we will all remember. All students deserve to celebrate classroom accomplishments big and small as your teachers and our principals and our schools and and all students and educators to know if there are gaps that we have to overcome. So whether it be the first the 100th or the last day of school, where proud to live in a state whose vision is to lead the nation in student focused education. Thank you all for letting me be here.
Thank you. And as I listened to the debate nationally about whether to reopen schools or not, I think about what a great job our teachers have done, our school administrators have done in making sure that our students had access to education, and in classroom instruction, they've done a terrific job. With that. We're glad to take any questions. Well, just to state your question, my question is,
there are a lot of folks who are who are obviously schooling at home, will they ever be accommodations for them to take their tests at home.
So the state assessments will need to be taken either at school or at the location that the school officials create for students, there'll be a lot of flexible options. In terms of the days, the times the ways that has started ministered to students. So every school district will be working closely with their families who do have students learning at home so that there can be opportunities for that family to feel comfortable, to feel safe, and to meet the needs of that family. And I think it's important to realize that 80% of our students are on site learning every day. So there is a percentage of students who are still virtual students learning remotely. But that percentage overall is small in comparison to the number that we do have on site. And so I think that makes it a much more manageable number for our districts to be able to work with those individuals.
The increase in the vaccine that you learned about today? Did they tell you how they were able to achieve that 5% increase?
I actually asked that specific question last week. And I think the answer is the same for today with their 5% increase. And that is that just as the states get better in the distribution, administration of the vaccine, our manufacturers get better every day on their processes. And so this is simply an increase in vaccine production by our manufacturers. It does not reflect as I asked them, did you find it in a closet somewhere? It hasn't been hidden, it just simply improve process and improve manufacturing,
to 10,000 doses that Walmart is going to have? Did you have to definitely the state had to agree to it? Was there any, Did we have to give anything up in order to get those?
No, that's this is a federal program that is over and above the state allocation. But they're working closely with Colonel aid or the Department of Health so that we can identify where the gaps are in our distribution, where they can fill in. So it's coordinated with all of our other distribution efforts. And so this is just another means of getting vaccines out into communities in which they're used to going to Walmart or that's their preferred per preferred provider. So it is something that we agreed to that selection, that designation, but glad to participate in that and really grateful Walmart's been working on this with the Coronavirus Task Force going back some time and with their capabilities, very optimistic this will be a good means of get it in quick to the arms of our Kansans. That's one of the things they emphasize their call with me and I emphasize to them is Walmart's good a lot of things and that's moving inventory out and get it into the stores and getting it out to the consumer. We want that same excellence to be done in terms of our vaccines. Currently, I think I answered that. Do you have anything good on that? Let's go remotely as are any questions remotely today?
Yeah, this is Alex with CHANNEL SEVEN. I have a question about vaccinations. When do you foresee moving forward with the one v group and start to vaccinate grocery store workers postal service workers, food workers and the other folks who are were in one be Are we still on schedule to get those folks in this month?
Well, actually, the schedule was that we would complete one a by the end of January. We got done. We got in a position where we could move to a couple categories in one be early. We did In January, but our original schedule was that we would be in one B in February and March. And so we've got a lot of work to do. And our hope is that through that time, we'll be able to move through the different categories of one B, we are not ready to move out of our earliest part of one B, which is our our teachers, our staff, and our 70. Plus, we still do not have all of those vaccinated yet, we haven't had the supply to get that done. But as that demand decreases, or we have a sense that we've got more supply than what the demand is right there, we will move into another category. We're not there yet. And I can't tell you exactly how long it'll be before we move into additional categories. But we're going to continue to monitor that and move in there as quickly as we can. Next question.
Hey, Governor. Hey, Governor, this is Josh with KAIT. I don't have a Coronavirus question. But I do have a question for the Education Secretary that is there with the see if she can comment on the school district of Brookland. The Brookland school district is currently under investigation by the Cricut County Sheriff's Office, they have an auto Legislative Audit also ongoing. Just kind of curious what the Department of Education thinks about this school district being under investigation for the last three months as well as the audit.
Do you have an answer? Or do you want to get back with them separately? Or we'll have this Dr. Pfeffer and Josh, they can communicate separately with you on that. But they're not prepared to answer that today. Next.
Good afternoon. It's Brett Raines with 4029 News. We've been hearing talks across the country, talk of possibly in an effort to expedite the vaccination process to possibly start using more of that first round doses to administer to more people, instead of states holding that, you know, for the second round dose. Has there been any talk recently about that? Where Where do we stand? I know where as of now, we're still on track to save enough so people are insured their second dose, is that correct?
Well, it's really, it's very important that whenever people are ready for the second dose that the second dose is there to give them. And so we do have a second dose allocation that comes in, it takes a little bit longer for that to get out. But we're not going to start using that which is set aside for the second dose for the first dose because we want to make sure that those that are getting the vaccine that FDA says nice to have that second dose that's there for them. It's very important to stick with that. And let me ask Dr. Romero, do you want to comment on that and maybe the colonel if if you have a comment too.
So we're basing our decisions on how to use the vaccine in large part by what the recommendations from the ACI p are. That's the CDC organization regarding vaccine allocation and use at this time the ACI P has not modified the recommendations for a second dose. So we will continue to plan on giving a second dose of those individuals that have received their primary shoot the primary shot, and will then move forward if there are any changes as the ACP recommends.
Next question.
Good afternoon, Governor. It's Neal Gladner at KZNG in Hot Springs. This question really is for Dr. Romero as well, in terms of monitoring for the variants that are not yet identified in Arkansas, could Dr. Romero, could you tell us in lay terms, how you do that. And also, you mentioned if I heard you right, that some of those variants don't respond as well to the treatment. So you're talking about the monoclonal antibodies and and which, if we know of those variants are not responsive. Thank you.
So there, there are two main ways that we monitor for this, we send specimens to the CDC to be sequenced as part of the national surveillance sequencing project. We also have laboratories in the state whose diagnostic tests are influenced by these variants. And the patterns that they see when they do the tests represent possible variants, and those are also sequenced and sent to the CDC and sequence there. So we're looking for those with regard to the variants and their resistance to monoclonal antibodies. So I believe it's a Brazilian variant has shown some decreased activity to the monoclonal it's not absolute, but there is a change there and we do worry about more changes affecting those monoclonal and Because those antibodies really attack a very specific part of the virus, unlike the immunity that which we all get when we're either infected or get the shot, which affects the entire part of the entire virus. This is a single portion. And so a mutation on a protein can have profound implications. Did I answer all your questions? I think there might have been a third question in there that I might have missed.
No, you. You got it all. Thank you.
Thank you.
Anything else?
Yes, this is Benji Hardy with the Arkansas nonprofit News Network. I have a question about the PTA. And Secretary Preston mentioned that some people might now be in the position of needing to refile a regular unemployment claim. Who might have gotten previous notice that they needed to file PDA? So I wonder how many people are in that position? And what do they need to do? Exactly.
So, as I said, there's about 60,000 individuals in the state that we've identified that were eligible for the ongoing and continued QA. Those folks have received those emails, and they're in the process of uploading that information. The individuals that are looking to file a new claim, either one need to be just that an independent contractor, a gig economy or worker self employed that was laid off between the end of between January one and now and impacted, because of COVID-19. If you fall in another category, if you are a traditional UI claimant who has exhausted benefits, and was looking to go to P ua, you need to go back to the traditional UI and file for the extended benefits because there were additional weeks added on the new bill that was passed by Congress that you have to exhaust those weeks before you're eligible for the P ua and that's where it currently stands.
I think that unless I hear something else, thank you all very much for your attention today. And I hope you all have a good afternoon. Thank you.