ARKANSAS, USA — Arkansas seeing a dramatic decrease in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the state.
The Arkansas Department of Health reported 558 new cases of COIVD-19 and 455 hospitalizations on Monday, Feb. 28.
“Just this month from the beginning of this month with the hospital census being over 80 patients being treated for covid, now the number is just over 20,” said Dr. Scott Cooper.
Clinic President of Mercy Northwest Arkansas, Dr. Scott cooper says it’s been a difficult challenge for almost two years. He also says he is optimistic that cases and hospitalizations will continue trending down.
“They’re down as low as they have been through the pandemic and hopefully, they’ll keep doing down like that. It almost seems like hospitalizations as a trailing indicator are not trailing as far behind the declining case numbers as they have with other variants,” he said.
The CDC has put out new metrics for measuring COVID-19 community levels taking into consideration the number of cases, hospitalizations and factors that would put stress on the healthcare system in that area.
On the CDC website, you can look at their recommendation by count. In Benton and Washington counties, it says they recommend you wear a mask if you are immunocompromised or at high risk or if you live with or have contact with someone at high risk. However, Sebastian and Crawford Counties are listed as having a high community spread and recommend wearing a mask indoors regardless of vaccination status.
“If we do a good job and are diligent about wearing our mask and keeping the spread of covid-19 low, we will more quickly I believe move to a yellow or green level where the general public could go without masks,” said Dr. Jennifer Dillaha.
Dr. Jennifer Dillaha with ADH says these new metrics take schools into consideration and the school districts should be masking or not depending on these metrics. She says the BA.2 variant is a sub-variant of omicron and there have been eight cases of it in Arkansas that were sent to be sequenced.
“We’re paying attention to other countries and locations where it is circulating, and it appears it may be more transmissible than the previous omicron variant. So far, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be causing worse illness,” she said.
The Arkansas Department of Health says if you haven’t, to get vaccinated and boosted and also say people who got their boosters in the fall are still protected.
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