A local physician told me that he was worried about his grandchildren. “They can’t get the vaccination,” he said, “and they are unprotected from the virus with school starting up soon.”
His grandchildren are up in northwest Arkansas—Benton County—where the COVID risk level is very high. About 43.8% have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine but only 35.1% are fully vaccinated. Over the last week, the county has seen an average of 90 new confirmed cases per day. The percentage of positive COVID tests is 10.6% but testing is limited and most cases may go undetected. With the total number of active cases growing, it is thought that each infected person there is likely infecting an average of 1.4 other people.1
COVID cases are increasing in nearly all states. The only way to get ahead of the Delta variant is to vaccinate more people, but the rates of vaccination in most states continue to drop. In 35 states, cases rose 50% or more last week. New daily cases in the U.S. have gone from 11,000 last month to an average of 25,000 per day. “We’re losing time here,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told CNN. He told MSNBC, “If you’re unvaccinated, this virus is looking for you.” “The Delta variant is spreading, people are dying,” Collins said. “We can’t actually just wait for things to get more rational.” The variant now accounts for 58% of new COVID cases in the U.S.2
The Atlantic3
(In rural Arkansas) They might have the flu, except for the added telltale symptom of this coronavirus: the loss of taste and smell. Many of the patients now are younger than those in previous months; a nurse who works there told me she saw two cases of young children in one day.
PBS News Hour4
Casey Johnson has never let a COVID patient die alone.
In her years as a bedside nurse at St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Johnson has watched countless patients pass. But the pandemic… brought a wave of death unlike any she’d ever seen.
To those who die in her care, she is a stranger, she said. But she can still offer them comfort. She’s caressed patients’ hands, quietly played “Amazing Grace” from her iPhone, gently bathed tired limbs. She sharpened her sixth sense for when someone was about to die — their breathing more sporadic, their mood more restless before becoming solemn and withdrawn. Those who hadn’t been robbed of their voice by the virus would often tell her “‘Today’s the day,’” or “‘I want to go home.’” She’s never gotten used to the conversations with loved ones who have been left behind, she said, and each time, it “takes a little bit out of you.”
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette5
Fifty-seven Arkansas National Guardsmen have tested positive for covid-19 in the past week during a training exercise at Fort Polk in Louisiana.
Soldiers from the 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, based out of Camp Robinson, traveled to the U.S. Army base near Leesville, La., for a combat readiness training exercise.
In addition to the 57 who tested positive, another 64 soldiers were put in quarantine. None of the soldiers have been hospitalized, Arkansas National Guard officials said Tuesday.
Like most of the state, most of the soldiers in the Arkansas National Guard are not vaccinated. An estimated 30% to 35% of guardsmen have gotten vaccinations, officials said.
New York Post6
Young, unvaccinated patients are begging for the COVID-19 shot as they fight for their lives at an Alabama hospital.
But Dr. Brytney Cobia has to deliver a heartbreaking dose of reality, instead.
“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late,” Cobia, who works at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday.
Cobia said she has been forced to turn down the desperate pleas from coronavirus patients about to be placed on ventilators.
“I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections,” she wrote.
- U.S. COVID risk & Vaccine tracker. (2021, July 21). Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://covidactnow.org/us/arkansas-ar/county/benton_county/?s=20821001
- Crist, C. (2021, July 16). NIH Chief: U.s. ‘LOSING time’ AGAINST Delta Variant. Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210715/nih-chief-says-u-s-losing-time-against-delta-variant
- Khamsi, R. (2021, July 19). COVID-19’s effects on kids are even stranger than we thought. Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/clues-about-mis-c-and-covid-19-kids/619447/
- Santhanam, L. (2021, July 21). Traumatized Arkansas hospital workers struggle as COVID surges among unvaccinated. Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/traumatized-arkansas-hospital-workers-struggle-as-covid-surges-among-unvaccinated
- Earley, N. (2021, July 21). 57 Arkansas GUARDSMEN test positive for covid-19 at Louisiana fort. Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/jul/21/57-arkansas-guardsmen-test-positive-for-covid-19/
- Salo, J. (2021, July 21). ‘It’s too late’: Doctor forced to turn Down COVID patients begging for vaccine. Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://nypost.com/2021/07/21/its-too-late-doctor-forced-to-turn-down-covid-patients-begging-for-vaccine/
