Local vaccination rate at 34 percent

Mississippi County saw a slight rise in the fully vaccinated rate over the past week, reaching nearly 34 percent.

Local officials continued to encourage the vaccine in Mayor James Sanders’ weekly Covid reports to improve the rate further. With Labor Day Weekend here, Mississippi County Health Officer Dr. Valencia Andrews-Pirtle warned against a trend that she’s seen throughout the pandemic.

“Everytime there's a holiday we’ve had a surge. You really don’t want to have your kids or family members around people who aren’t vaccinated. And even if you are, you still need to wear a mask. I beg people to not have these large gatherings, it’s not the time,” Pirtle said. “We really want to have this pandemic slowed down and stopped.”

Pirtle and Sanders were also joined by third year medical student at UAMS Bailey Singleton.

Singleton detailed the situations hospitals have been placed in due to Covid.

“UAMS is one of the largest hospitals in Arkansas and we’ve been packed,” Singleton said. “Everything from surgeries to psychiatric facilities have been cut down because we don’t have the staff to take care of them.”

Adding more perspective, she said, “I know when I worked with labor and delivery last week, we were four or five days behind on calling people in so they could deliver their babies. Imagine telling a baby, ‘no, you can’t come out yet.’ It’s been wild in Little Rock, but hopefully we can get through this pandemic, get everyone vaccinated and have everyone safe and healthy.”

Blytheville Police Chief Ross Thompson spoke of how the police department has been impacted at a greater rate in recent week than at any other time during the pandemic.

“We’ve had one employee that was positive and three officers that were as well. And this was probably in the last month. That’s more than we had all of last year probably. This delta variant has come on strong,” Thompson said.

“Our concern when looking at numbers like this is we are one big exposure away from having a shift go into quarantine,” Thompson added. “I don’t know if people realize the devastating effect that could have on emergency services. And if [the hospital staffing issues] aren’t ringing alarm bells in you then you’re not listening.”

Sanders reported 320 active cases in the county during the Wednesday briefing, with 22,422 across the entire state. Arkansas secretary of health José R. Romero also reported on Tuesday that 99.3 percent of covid cases are the delta variant.