Thank you for joining us for today's COVID-19 weekly update. I'm pleased to be joined this afternoon by Dr. Jose Romero, of the Department of Health. We have Secretary johnnie key of the Department of Education Secretary Mike Preston of the Department of Commerce. And then we have Colonel Robert, ater, our program coordinator for vaccine distribution. And there will be available for answering questions as needed. First, let me make some observations about where we are in our vaccine distribution, Arkansas. I'm pleased with the team and the work that they're doing. I'm grateful for our hospitals and our pharmacies are doing a great job on the frontline of getting these vaccinations out quickly. They're coming in they're moving out, we're getting into the arms of our Kansans. And if you look back on where we were in one a, right now, all of our long term care facilities have had vaccination clinics available to them. And so that's 100% of our long term. Long term care facilities have had at least one clinic, our first responders have been covered. Over 50% of our teachers and staff have had access to vaccination. Now, let me emphasize that those are a compilation numbers we don't have a data source that I can point to. But that's my best estimate based upon the surveys that we've taken across the state. In terms of our 70 plus population, we have a ways to go, we have more to cover. And we are need to make more progress with our 70. Plus, before we open up our vaccine distribution, two more elements of one B. As of today we have 12.8% of the Arkansas population vaccinated. That is a huge step forward in our fight against COVID-19. There is some good news. And that is that this week, our the national retail pharmacy program will be providing a 20% increase in our available doses here in Arkansas. That program is over and above what we do through our retail community pharmacies. This will be through Walmart in 58 Walmart stores, and there'll be 11,000 doses that will be delivered this week to those 58 Walmart stores. They're not there yet, we anticipate that they will be coming this week. And that Friday, they'll be able to start administering those doses. And that's a effective partnership as that adds to the partnerships we already have in place with our community pharmacies, and our hospitals. I did want to make an announcement today. And that is that nationally, there'll be 1 million doses that will go to our Federally Qualified
community health centers. We have 12 community health organizations in Arkansas with 120 clinics. And this will be a start of a new federal effort to get the vaccines out to more of the population in rural areas, or the underserved areas and so it increases access to them. This will be over and above our state allocation again. This is announced today on my call with the beiden Coronavirus Task Force. But we will be coordinating that and waiting for information we do not know how many of the clinics will receive that how much the dosage will be. There's no action that can be taken out or simply waiting for new information. But that is a new effort to get vaccines in places like Arkansas in our rural areas. Secondly, I want to announce that CDC will be providing guidance to repurpose second doses. For those who do not show up for their second appointment. Everyone has their first appointment, they get their dose, they're scheduled for a second dose. And if you don't meet that schedule for your second dose, then at some point in time, CDC will be recommending that that dose be redistributed to other people that are waiting in line so the doses do not spoil or go unused. Let me emphasize I think this is a smart approach. I think it'll be helpful here in Arkansas to emphasize the importance of getting the second dose. This will be a very small number of people because When you go in and get your first vaccination, you know, you need you to get your second dose, people are anxious to get that. So we expect this to be a small segment of the population. But it is important that it emphasizes, get the vaccine, get your second dose, make sure you follow up and fulfill your obligation or your appointment time to get that second dose. With that, let me go to the vaccination report that we'll put up first. And again, we're in phase one beef having finished one a, and in one B, you can see that we've had right in the middle, we've received totally 651,000 doses of the vaccines. And we've given out 413,000. People ask Where is the excess there? Well, it's in the pipeline to get out. Sometimes those are second doses. But the first doses are getting into the arms of our Kansans within 72 hours. And we're pushing to continue to improve that. You can see the continued flow of vaccines on the top left, that we've received 40,700 vaccines in the last 24 hours, we've given out 12,000. And that 65% out of the state efforts, the federal program through the CVS and Walgreens as a slower process, they're keeping back for second doses. But that's gradually increasing up to 42%. And so we're going to be adding to that some additional work through the community centers, as well as through the federal pharmacy program that will continue our efforts to get those vaccines out as quickly as possible. And then let's go on to our case report. The last 24 hours, we've had 1475 new cases. But we've had a reduction in active cases by 422, which continues to be good news, I keep waiting for the death report to go down 42 deaths is a is too high based upon the number of cases that we have. We it had been going down in the last couple of days. But it's back up to 42. Today, which is a sad note on this report. In terms of our hospitalizations on the right you can see a reduction by two. And so that's continues to say flat hopefully that will continue in the right direction. ventilators is a small reduction as well. And so the cases, if you put it in perspective, we continue to have reduced our new cases. But over the last week, it's flattened out. And it's good that we've reduced it down and but we want it to continue to go down. And it's reminder that if we don't take the right precautions, then the spread will continue, the cases will go up and we'll be back in a very bad situation. And let's go on just to show it in graphic forms.
The seven day rolling average of confirmed and probable cases, right trajectory there. As you can see, the next one is the number of hospitalized COVID patients down to 775. And that's as the lowest has been for some time. That's good news for our health care workers. The active number of cases, if I indicated is going down very dramatically. And and I look forward to the time that gets down to where it was back in early October. The next one shows by region. And I like to show this once a week just to show the different regions and the trajectory. If you look at the top, which is Northwest you see that huge spike for Northwest Arkansas that has come down dramatically and has actually come down lower than the yellow, which is Central Arkansas and so both of them have trended in a better direction. And then the blue of course, is northeast that is coming down. And then the green and red has been consistently flat over time a little bit up the red which is southeast Arkansas going down. And so progress in all those regions of the state. And then I'm going to leave that up there for Dr. Romero to talk about, but I'm going to end if we can go to the video. I want to showcase our advertising effort with an ad that's on the television
This winter, we must bundle up not just for warmth, but to control the spread of COVID-19. Where a face covering wash your hands, maintain a safe distance from others and avoid crowded spaces. Get your flu shot now and the COVID-19 vaccine when it's available, we can get back to a better tomorrow by doing the right things today, Learn more at healthy arkansas.gov.
It's a great message. We're spending half a million dollars this month and next month in the media campaign. There's numerous ads that are out there, but want to assure everyone that we're really marketing, get your vaccine, when it's your turn, and your turn will come soon, the the vaccine supply is increasing. We're accelerating that the best we can. And with that, Dr. Romero for your comments. Thank you, Governor.
Thank you for leaving me this last slide. So I think we've reached an important milestone today. If you can see there's a dotted or half line across that slide. And that represents 10% positivity rate, it is a great that we have been striving to be below. And if you remember, in the early part of the of the pandemic here in the state, we've always tried to be below that, you can see that it began to tick upward and past above that 10% line in early November. I'm happy to report today that when combining both the positivity rate for our PCR tests and our antigen test, we are for the first time under that were at 9.9, we hope to continue to see that go downward, it means that our efforts are working, that your efforts are working. And that we need to continue with the mitigation strategies which were already described by the governor. And by the by the the the add other issues that I think I would like to point out are that are active cases, as mentioned by the governor have continued to drop. And that is a good sign. That means that we're not having as many positives added to the list. And we're starting to get more people off the list of active cases. So things are moving in the right direction. We can keep them moving, as long as we continue our mitigation strategies. And our vaccines are moving outward, we're starting to to get them into portions of the state where we have an equal distribution across the entire state. And we'll be working on that as we receive new vaccines. So I'll end here and turn it back over to the governor. Thank you, Governor.
Thank you, Jose. And in order to make sure we have an opportunity to get to as many questions as we can. I've asked Secretary key and Secretary Preston and Colonel aider to be available. If there's questions in those fields, they can answer. But we did want to have more time for questions today. And so we'll turn it over.
In terms of the Walmart program, keynote after this week, is that how many each week we're going to be how many deaths they're going to be getting,
there should be a consistent supply. There's not any guarantee that will be increased. But the pattern is be being that they're not going to decrease that supply. So that's my expectation that there will be a consistent supply. But as to whether that will be increased. Is will be a week by week. information that we receive
per week.
That's correct, Colonel. So I think it's 11,500 11,600 doses.
allocation for net fleet. How much that'll be. Colonel,
why don't you address it?
Well, thank you, sir.
So what we've seen over the last three weeks, we saw the 16% increase. And we expect that to stay the same for at least three weeks, we also saw a 5% bump. And now when you talk about the the increase with the National retail pharmacy program, altogether, that increases the volume of coming into the state of about 40%. So So we've we've been very, very successful in the second line of effort that we've been trying to do is increase the the rapidity of the vaccine coming in this state. So we that we kind of expect that to be the case for a while. And really kind of the next big thing is that we're trying to get better information on any kind of new vaccine that would be introduced. We don't have any idea of the real timing on that or the allocation coming into the state but we're preparing for that and figuring out how best to deploy that.
Currently, and let me add actually failed to mention this that on my call with the Coronavirus Task Force, that we were advised that there will be, in addition to the state allocation nationally of 500,000. I believe that's the number. And so that's a smaller increase that we've seen before with 16% and 5%. But there will be a small increase for next week.
When we'll be at the point that you can add other groups from one B and TV.
We are we've had discussions on that we're not prepared to make any announcement, we have to get further into the 70 plus population. Right now, there's too much of a waiting list. There's a greater need there. And so we want to get deeper into that population. Before we move into additional segments, just to you know, I do believe that by March one, we will be able to make additional steps into one be, but we're going to be monitoring it between now and then to see if that needs to be adjusted anyway.
We'll be next.
We'll keep you informed otherwise they'll be lining up early. Are there any questions remotely?
Yes. Hotspur using kz and G.
I noted a national article this morning that per capita ranks Arkansas again, number 11 in the nation in getting doses into arms. Does does the effectiveness of the program impact your allocate our our allocation in Arkansas from the White House Task Force week to week?
No, it doesn't. Right now, it is strictly on a per capita basis. But it does impact our credibility, the confidence level the partnership, and so we do get accolades for how we are effectively getting the vaccination out. And that is confidence building for what we're doing in this state and increases our partnership. But right now, and I expect that to continue that it is on a per capita basis. We're gonna watch that very closely if that veers from that.
Governor, it's Michael hip Lin from kagwe art public radio in Little Rock. I wanted to ask your thoughts on the story I'm working on based on an encounter I had over the weekend at a fast food restaurant in southwest Arkansas. No employees inside this restaurant in Texarkana, Arkansas, were wearing masks, no social dispensing. I asked a manager about this who told me there is no requirement to wear masks, and that the owner of the franchise, who owns several restaurants in the state told employees, they don't have to do so. So they don't I interviewed someone with the Department of Health yesterday and contradicted that said your directive skill mandates that any restaurant worker who works with the public must square a mask. He said they would investigate by complaint and send someone to the restaurant. But my question to you is how do you feel when parts of your directive are disregarded by businesses? Putting employees and the public at risk?
was at a Texarkana, Arkansas, Texarkana, Texas restaurant,
it was hard consult, it was time to go outside and same person owns several restaurant in the state?
Well, the thank you for giving us that information. And there is a directive still in place for restaurants as to how they operate their capacity, as well as the requirement for the staff to wear masks. And so there's a clear directive. And as you know, we've enforced that directive through actions the Department of Health, whenever there is an alcohol permit, it's also enforced by our ABC. And so in our information is there's a high level of compliance because there is a risk with the enforcement side. There's always presumably some outliers, but I think that's a severe minority. And we will take action and answer any complaints whenever we have that information. So thank you.
Governor. This is David Ramsey with the Arkansas nonprofit News Network. You mentioned that the at this point, all of the long term care facilities have had at least one vaccination clinic. I guess. Can you clarify or translate that into the population level. Does that mean that that all residents and staff who want a shot have had have had an opportunity to get a shot? And and secondly, the I know, the CVS, Walgreens federal program kind of operates differently and has been operating at a kind of slower pace, I guess. Could you speak to why that is what what is causing that to sort of in terms of getting shots into arms, that process to be a little slower? And specifically, there have been reports around long term care facilities, sort of having a more efficient or speedy process if they go to independent pharmacies as opposed to CVS or Walgreens? Is that accurate? And can you kind of speak to why
could we put the first slide back up on vaccinations. So you can see, first of all, you look on the left side, and with the doses that were given out, which is three or 92,000, that includes doses through our community pharmacies to long term care facilities. And so we have that separate program that probably covers 60% of our long term care facilities as to the percent of the residents who get the vaccination, we, the pharmacies hold the clinic there. They have that partnership, they get the consents, they do all the things that are necessary. But there's always a few that say, you know, we don't want the vaccine or they don't get the consent. And so I don't have the exact number for that. But there's been a high acceptance rate among our elderly population in our long term care facilities. And that's one of the reasons they go back for a second clinic for the second dose and to get those that were not vaccinated. On the first one. On the right side, you'll see the question that you addressed in terms of Walgreens and and CVS, and this is a federal program that goes directly to them, they've been, they were slow on the start. And then they were over allocated, that means they got more doses than was needed for the long term care facilities that were assigned to them. And they've, we've, they've cooperated with us to give us some of those allocations back. And to get those in the arms of 70 plus. And so people have a choice, they can go to multiple different pharmacies and see if they get on a list to see what their supply chain is. And I'm and so, Colonel, later, did you have anything you want to add to that? Thank you, sir.
So again, you know, the governor's absolutely correct the they were over allocated based on the number of licensed beds, and then a straight ratio on what staff on a one to one ratio for every bed there was one member of staff, so it was wildly over allocated. And then you have the the you know, that that hesitancy issue, so that even drove the numbers down a little bit more. So what you see here, and this is, one of the things that I have to, you know, remind a lot of different people about is that we give the shot, the prime dose, and then we have to wait a month for that to give us the good the second dose or the boost dose. contractually, they were given three rounds of clinics that they have to go hit. And so and one of the things that's encouraging is the fact that in our second round clinics, we're seeing about a 30% uptick, of, of, you know, people wanting the vaccine. So, you know, once we got past the scary phase, and people wondering if they should take it or not, we're seeing actually, there's more demand there. So we've retrieved back. So we're trying to really, really kind of drill down on how much we can take back. But we're gonna see this, this difference for at least another couple weeks. But you will see, as you can see, right there, you know, just yesterday, we gave almost 1000 doses in those in those programs. And so I expect that as we go through the second doses, we'll see that continue to grow.
Let me take advantage of the up the question. And as I communicated to the administration today, that we were grateful for their partnership, but next week, whenever the manufacturing of our vaccines increases and there's extra supply, they got a choice to make, they can do it through a separate allocation such as they did here, or through the community health centers, or they can increase the allocation to the state. And I advocated for just increase the allocation to The state and we can manage the program. We're very efficient and getting it out. And so give it to us. And we can make the decisions as to making sure it's equitable, which we're working toward. But the efficiency rate is best if you simply coordinate it and give it through the states increase our allocation. So it's been a great partnership, it will continue to be. But I did have that message. And I think that's important. Next question.
And this is Samantha with K NWA. I'm wondering about vaccines and special care facilities. I've talked to an oncology clinic who's requested vaccines to give to patients who are eligible right now. But the clinic hasn't gotten their shots to their patients over seven days, are having to find them elsewhere, and they're on long waitlist. Is there any update on if and when these clinics will get these vaccines for patients who are eligible? curl?
Thank you for the question, because we have been discussing this quite a bit. And so this short answer is we just don't have the volume to be able to support all the different clinics or all the different providers that want to give vaccines, we are certainly bringing into our long range vision to be able to bring in those clinics and community hospitals, so that we can get at this population. Because you know, when we look forward to the time when we're starting to get into the one c population, and we're dealing with comorbidities within the population, we want to make sure that we're using our physicians to prioritize who needs the vaccine first. And so so that is certainly something we're working towards as volume increases.
We're going to be pushing more and more to these, these networks and and community hospitals going forward.
Next question.
Good afternoon. It's Brent rains with 4029 News. According to the new report released by the UA Ms. I say that we're currently in the eye of a hurricane. Do we think the worst is behind hide behind us? Or do we expect another big crease? Big increase? If so, and why? And then second question is we're hearing from local pharmacists who say they're overwhelmed by giving the vaccine shots they're doing the most they can. What else can be done with that? Thank you.
Well, in terms of our pharmacies, it's a big project to give 10s of 1000s of doses out over the course of weeks. And so we appreciate them. But that's one of the reasons is Colonel ater said that we want to have additional clinics, we want to have additional means of outlet and access for our Kansans to get their vaccination. So we will be increasing that as the supply increases with the pharmacies, they value that I think it's rewarding to them. And they're, they're a good partner for us. In terms of the first question, if there's one thing I've learned through the course of this pandemic, and that is, it's hard to predict the future as to where the cases go and, and, and plot the weather we're in the eye of the storm or whether we're on a downward slope right now. And so we just have to stick with our individual discipline on mass squaring, that is the best assurance that we're not going to have an uptick in cases. But I want Dr. Romero to comment a little bit more, because I know that one of the factors is if a variant shows up in Arkansas, or if there is an impact from the Super Bowl that we won't even know for, for some time yet. Dr. Morrow.
So I certainly think that I haven't seen the report. But certainly one way of classifying you that our reduction in cases design could be that we're in the eye of a hurricane, although i don't think so i think that we are we have driven this downward, the cases have gone down. But we have the opportunity now to be cut to get ourselves in a situation where we can prevent more cases where we can continue with these mitigation measures. That is the most important thing that's going to get us through any any new variants that Come on, because those are the ones that we can mitigate with standard three measures, washing our hands, watching our distance and keeping our masks in place. There will be variants. We'll have to see where they're going. We are seeing certain variants increasing every doubling time every 10 days. So they will eventually get here right now. They're not we haven't found any we keep sending specimens to the CDC. We're looking for them. But that will not change our strategy. Our strategy still remains vaccinate as many people as we can keep the number of individuals to as low as possible where the virus can't replicate, and then keep the mitigation measures going. We can keep this under control.
Any other questions? Good. Anything else? tables? You good?
You're talking about the CDC guidance on second doses. Do you know anything about what the protocol will be for that? Like how long you have to wait before you read us the second test for first?
Well, of course, we'll have to wait for the CDC guidance. But so I am repeating what I understand from the Coronavirus taskforce today that they'll be which basically as it was 10 days after the second dose is due, then they will use that dosage for others. And that's, you know, a 42 day timeframe if it's a four if it's an eight week timeframe to get the second dose. So let's wait for the CDC guidance, but that's approximately the timeframe that I understand will be provided. With that, thank you and I want to thank everybody for being here today.