COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Arkansas as the holiday season gets into full swing, with the Arkansas Department of Health reporting 6,585 active cases in the state Friday.
Active cases dipped below 10,000 at the beginning of October and have yet to exceed that point, but the holiday season is still reporting an upward trajectory, according to ArkansasCovid.com analysis of ADH data.
Healthcare workers are concerned that this winter will be a repeat of last season’s fatally high COVID-19 numbers, which peaked in Jan. 2021 with 27,822 concurrent active cases and NUMBER deaths from December through February, according to ADH data.
One Arkansas healthcare worker said the end of the year is weighing on medical staff. Jason Rutledge, a home health nurse in Searcy who often works with post-hospitalization COVID-19 patients, noted that providers are stretched thin dealing with the pandemic atop regular difficulties.
“It’s just hard this time of year when lots of people are already getting sick for cold and flu season, and then you’ve got Covid on top of it,” Rutledge said. He added that Arkansas’ low vaccination rates and lack of safety precautions are further compounding the issue.
“It’s like when everyone was starting to get vaccinated, they just acted like it was over. I see patients pretty much every day that are miserable from long Covid, so let me tell you, it ain’t over,” Rutledge said.
Vaccinations in the state have reached 51.2 percent for individuals five and older, another 11.6 percent are partially immunized, according to the ADH. Healthcare workers have administered nearly 320,000 booster doses.
The death toll of COVID-19 is up to 8,693, an increase of more than 300 since Nov. 1. In 2021, 5,023 Arkansans have died from COVID-19, compared to 3,676 in 2020, according to ADH data.