ADC Director Payne says all state inmates have masks.

Day 34 – Tue. Apr. 14, 2020

Here are some Key Notes, Statistics, and Video for Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson’s news update on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tuesday’s news conference focused on:

travel and lodging in the state,
two new Executive Orders,
COVID cases in prisons,
and contact tracing.

Dexter Payne, Director of the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADC) was present to tell what state prisons are doing to mitigate the spread of the virus. Dr. Nate Smith, State Secretary of Health also listed the current statistics for COVID-19 patients (scroll to end).

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Governor Hutchinson began the conference with several charts, noting that he felt the daily hospitalization numbers are beginning to plateau (fig. 2). He also stated that according to the one chart, Arkansas has been consistently near the bottom for positive cases and deaths, compared to other states (fig. 3 & 5), while the state’s testing numbers have been near the middle (fig. 4).

He also noted that the 26 highway message boards around the borders of Arkansas (fig. 6) make it clear that the state is not welcoming out-of-state travelers that are looking for recreation or escape from a state with a higher rate of Coronavirus cases. The messages say “No rec lodging for out of state travelers,” and “Out of state rec lodging prohibited.” Hutchinson said that travel has decreased to 55% over last year at this time.

The Governor announced that he issued two new Executive Orders. One is “for first responders and frontline healthcare workers, so they can file Workers Compensation claims if there is a causal relationship between COVID-19, catching that virus and their work responsibilities.” He said the second is, “Liability immunity for medical emergency responders during the COVID-19 emergency. This includes physicians, physician assistants, specialist assistants, nurse practitioners, licensed registered nurses and licensed practical nurses.”

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Fig. 1 above

Fig. 2 above

Fig. 3 above

Fig. 4 above

Fig. 5 above

Fig. 6 above

Dr. Smith stated that Arkansas is growing in capacity in contact tracing. He said that 78 nurses are working on case investigations, 10 disease intervention specialists are also conducting contact tracing. 3 epidemiologists are working on software development for it.

Yesterday, the state went live with a system called Situational Awareness Response Assistance (SARA). “It’s used to monitor contacts and sends alerts to people during the 14-day quarantine,” stated Smith.

He said there are 2 healthcare-associated infections teams (HAI teams) that are working with nursing homes, long-term care facilities, and prisons. There are 9 staff members with these teams. He stated that is a total of 103 staff doing contact tracing, and the state is looking at expanding staff and partners to 150-160 by next week.

Director Payne stated that ADC will continue the suspension of visitors to inmates in state prisons until June 1st, 2020. He said that creates a hardship on inmates, so the system has drastically reduced the price for video visitation and phone calls. The movement of inmates has also been minimized. He said that all inmates and staff now have face masks and that infected barracks have all been isolated.

Dr. Nate Smith, State Secretary of Health listed the current statistics for COVID-19 patients below:

32 deaths (up by 2, one in 50s, one over 65)
81 hospitalized (up by 7)
1498 total cases (up by 88)
1024 of those are active cases (up by 35)
- Does not include those previous patients that have recovered or are deceased
444 total recovered cases (up by 53)
206 cases in healthcare workers
- 65 of the recovered are healthcare workers
93 cases in nursing home residents & workers
- 6 deaths from nursing homes
- 28 nursing homes with cases
- This is 11% of total case number
142 total cases in prisons in Arkansas
- 55 cases at Forrest City Federal Correctional Facility (no change from yesterday)
- 43 cases at Cummins State Correctional Facility (no change from yesterday)
- 44 cases at Little Rock Community Correctional Facility (up by 12)
- This is 10% of total cases
29 are currently on a ventilator (up by 1)
193 healthcare workers