HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. — In Phillips County, the number of deaths from COVID-19 now stands at 23, with 1,164 confirmed cases.
Leaders say after the holidays, the growing numbers were expected, but they’re concerned.
“We’ve had the highest numbers we’ve seen since March, in the post-Thanksgiving period,” said Kevin Smith, mayor of Helena-West Helena.
“The winter forecast for COVID is very dire, very serious,” he said. “We will not all be able to get the vaccine probably until late spring or early summer.”
Smith routinely uses social media to urge citizens to wear face coverings and maintain social distancing. He’s concerned despite state and local guidelines, the public still isn’t taking the pandemic seriously enough.
“Even though the good news is there’s a vaccine on the horizon and some of our heathcare workers locally are getting the first round of vaccine, we’re not by any means out of this yet,” Smith said.
It’s a concern shared by Dr. Scott Hall, chief of staff at the Helena Regional Medical Center.
“We’re running around 80 to 90 cases on any given day, and you know we’ve got a county of only about 20- or 25,000, and of the cases we are catching, there’s probably twice that many out there that we don’t catch. Because people just don’t go to the doctor or go get tested,” he said.
Hall says his office already received 50 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
“I’ve actually had my first dose,” he said. “I’m due next week for my second dose. I had no problems with the vaccine, none, just a little sore arm and I was good to go after that. Most people are not going to have problems with it.”
He says the post-Thanksgiving spike in positive cases is starting to hit his Phillips County office as numbers reflect what health care professionals in rural Arkansas feared.
He said the virus is spreading mostly through friends and family going and visiting each other.
Smith said the Phillips County COVID taskforce, which was formed in March, meets weekly to discuss any updates to state and local health guidelines.
The Arkansas Department of Health reported nearly 1,500 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 37 new confirmed deaths.