Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Arkansas Times and KUAR FM 89 And hello again, everyone, and thanks very much for being with us.

For years, even longer, electric cars and trucks were the target of ridicule.

The stuff of jokes With each passing day, they seemed not so wild a dream, especially when not one but two companies are betting millions of dollars that the future is in charging stations, not gas stations, and not when those companies are spending those research and development dollars in Arkansas.

And we'll have more on that in a moment.

First, Arkansas's chief health officer.

Governor Hutchinson, secretary of health, at least for the next few days, after a bit less than two years in that job, Dr. Jose Romero will leave Arkansas next month for Atlanta and the Centers for Disease Control.

His tenure here has frequently been controversial.

Dr. Romero joins us now.

Doctor, thanks very much for coming in and giving us your time.

Once again.

Thank you very much for having me.

We are now in the third year of the of the pandemic.

And I have to ask, as you prepare to take your leave of us, what is your number one concern now in terms of Arkansas and COVID 19 I think really my concern focuses at this time on the issue of vaccinations, that we still do not have sufficient number of individuals at all of the age eligible groups to really feel comfortable about protection for the public.

So I think that's our major focus right now.

At the health department continuing to push the need for vaccinations and for all vaccinations, not just a primary series, but also for the boosters for that first booster and second booster, and then immunizing our children as we begin to have more vaccines.

Well, I think we'll go ahead, please.

No, no, please.

Dr.

Finish No, I was I was going to say, I think with regard to other aspects of of our response that is testing, I think we are we are doing very well with that.

We have the capacity to test when when the need arises.

Again, our health department is set for this.

And I think for other areas of response, I think we're well set.

So but the latest numbers that we see, both in terms of hospitalizations, new cases, would certainly seem to be encouraging.

Is that false optimism on our part?

No, I think that's correct.

We are definitely at a on a downward trajectory.

I think we'll plateau.

But we need to keep in mind that what is happening in the Northeast could very well happen here in Arkansas and that we can begin to see an increase in a number of cases as a result of the the newer strain, the way to strain.

I don't expect that a surge or that a blip, if you will, to be as significant or severe as we have seen in previous surges in the state.

Now, there's still always a possibility, and I think that that we will see a novel strain emerge and we'll probably see one more surge before this is all over with.

How high that surge will be.

I think we'll need to wait and see what what nature throws out.

Well, you know, that's quoting you one want at least one more surge?

There are some physicians, epidemiologists, research scientists.

We are in for a sustained decades long at a minimum period of evolving viruses on a on a scale, on a scope anyway, that we have not seen in really almost a century.

Do you concur with that?

I do.

The molecular biology virology indicates that we are going to see new variants arising and that these variants, some of which will escape our ability to currently for protection and will pose some challenges.

But but again, I think this is a natural evolution.

One of the common coronaviruses is most likely or was most likely the cause of the Russian flu in the late 1800s and it has evolved over time to cause now mostly a common cold.

One of the problems that medical science is confronting and I'm trying to read as much of the latest research or reportage as I can that we still don't understand very much about long COVID.

We can't we can barely define it.

Where do we stand in terms of that?

Yeah, that is an area of concern, I think, for the public and for the state.

Going forward, we really do need to have a better idea of how this affects adults and children also.

And my concern is that we're going to have an increased number of individuals with with chronic debilitating conditions, whether that be a cardiac disease, which is clearly defined in adults now.

And we begin to see that as it progresses, possibly neurologic issues that persist for a long time.

And a concern for me as a pediatrician, this higher incidence of possibly diabetes in children and in adults And these are going to be burdens on our health care system and on our economy as we move forward over into the next three to five years.

The the outgoing President Biden's outgoing use, the term czar, COVID czar, anyway, was asked the other day if he thought that with about one third of the U.S. still unvaccinated or at a minimum not totally vaccinated.

And I have to believe the number is higher here in Arkansas.

Have we hit a ceiling in terms of public acceptance of vaccination?

I think that's a very valid question.

I think that we're not going to move a lot of people going forward.

We're going to have to really make sure that those individuals that have accepted the vaccine get fully vaccinated.

That doesn't mean we're going to give up.

We're going to continue to explain why the public needs to accept the vaccine and explain the safety of the vaccine.

This is no longer a new vaccine.

These vaccines, we say, is that these vaccines are no longer novel vaccines.

They are studied.

They've been given to millions of people.

We understand the side effects.

No vaccine is without side effects.

And at this time, the ACIP, the the advisory board of the CDC, has continuously weighed the risk benefit analysis.

And the whispered risk benefit of this vaccine is far greater.

The risk I'm sorry.

The benefit is far greater than the risk of receiving it.

So it's a safe vaccine.

It is a value at this time.

Well, as saying or assessing the public mood right now as a public health officer, sir, are we seeing a just an enormous case of COVID fatigue?

I do think we are.

I think we're seeing that it's not just here.

It's all across the country.

At the same time, it's up to us.

The public health officials and department to continue to bring to the public that we are not past this pandemic yet, that we need to be vigilant and we need to take precautions when appropriate in order to lead as normal life as possible.

I do not believe we are ever going to go back to the way we were in 2019 before the start of this pandemic.

I think we're going to have to modify our lifestyles to take into account that this virus is there not to what extent modify our lifestyle so that I've got public health officials across the country into a lot of a lot of trouble.

Brought you a lot of grief anyway.

Modify our lifestyle.

To what extent, to the extent that we need to consider this as as a possibility of infection.

So, for example, if I'm going to go to an environment where there are a lot of people in close contact and I'm not certain that a lot of people have enough people have been vaccinated, I'm going to wear a mask that's that is what I'm talking about.

Modify our activities in the future.

This is something we need to think about.

This is an individual decision, but we need, as public health officials, to explain this to the public so that they can make those decisions appropriately.

This job would have been a lot easier, Mr. Biden's COVID czar says.

He, too, is exiting the administration or moving on.

But he says misinformation has been a major impediment in the fight against this pandemic.

I can see you shaking your head.

There is no question.

The basal baleful use of this information or transmission of this information by the by the public, by at times even even persons in authority have really undermined the ability to effectively mask, to effectively quarantine and to get the vaccine out into the public.

I think that that this misinformation has has done a great disservice to public health and to the public in general of the United States.

Well, in announcing your departure, sir, a few days ago, Governor Hutchinson said that, first of all, paid tribute to you.

You had his back and he tried to have viewers but in terms of political resistance to not only your recommendations, your suggestions, but your predecessors as well, and the administration.

There's a lot of political pushback on that.

That is that is that a factor in your departure Not at all.

Not at all.

I knew that there would be a political side to this to this pandemic.

It was obvious even before I came in.

But it has nothing to do with my moving on.

The decision to move from Arkansas to the CDC was one that I carefully considered, just like I considered it, moving from the university here to the health department.

I do believe that I have something to offer, and that is why I've taken the position.

I think I can impact positively on the health of Americans going into the future, whether it is in Arkansas, sir, or the broader United States or even global for that matter.

Do you see it as some do a failure of trust in institute, a lack of trust in institutions, particularly in science.

It's not just the COVID vaccine, but other vaccines as well.

A rejection of of what seems to be accepted science on climate change.

Are we in perilous territory here?

Yeah.

I think that the COVID pandemic really is just an extension of what you mentioned.

That is that that is denialism or the lack of of trust in science that goes back to, you know, climate change and science in general.

To be certain, though, public health has to do a better job of messaging.

And there is no doubt that the CDC made missteps in messaging and we need to remedy that as we go forward.

But there clearly is a stream in the United States that is anti-science and if you will.

And we really need to push against it, because if not, we are going to get deeper into trouble with regard to climate change.

And there are this is ongoing public health problem.

There will be other public health threats in the future.

And if we continue to undermine the trust in our public, health officials will be poorly, poorly situated to respond to them.

Well, recognizing that we are in a highly ideological age or would appear to be, would you change your messaging over the last couple of years in any way I would continue to message.

But I think that, you know, we've learned a lot and I've learned a lot from the governor.

I think that taking the message to the people that is us going out to the people, to the public, I think had a lot a lot of goodwill and engender a lot of goodwill.

Forgive me for saying that greatly.

Engender a lot of goodwill and convince people that that vaccines, for example, were beneficial.

We need to get the message out to the public.

We need to use different streams to get that message out.

I've learned a lot about social media and social mediums.

I guess I don't have a presence, but but I understand how people use this.

And we need to be able to be facile enough to move from the normal cable TV to these messaging systems, Twitter, whatever, to get the message out.

Dr. Jose Romero, thank you very much for being with us.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you, sir.

Come back when you can And we'll be right back.

And we are back now.

Arkansas has not wanted for business and industrial announcements in the past several days, weeks, actually groundbreaking expansions.

But two in particular seem to demand special attention if only because they would appear to be on the crest of a real technological revolution.

And both say they will invest tens of millions of dollars to establish an Arkansas foothold or grow their Arkansas footprint.

We're joined now by Mike Preston, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Commerce Mr. Secretary, thanks very much for being with us.

And let's start there with the electric vehicle.

This this goes back to something that Mr. Hutchinson, Governor Hutchinson, had been anticipating for some years.

Actually, he has.

And I think you can look no further than his smart mobility or future mobility task force that he's put together, that I'm proud to serve on.

And we're looking at what do we need to do in Arkansas to really capture this market?

Not only is it the electric vehicles, but it's drone delivery it's autonomous vehicles that we're starting to see delivery of trucks from from Wal-Mart to company partnering with called Gattex.

So there's a lot going into this industry.

It's emerging, but it is the future of what we're going to have in Arkansas wants to be on the forefront of that.

No question that tens of millions across the country, in fact, around the world are going into R&D on electric vehicles.

How much momentum do you see here?

I mean, how quickly are we going to see a shift from combustible fuels to two rechargeable renewable?

You know, I think it's happening quicker than than people anticipated.

You know, it's been coming for some years now.

But it we've seen so much acceleration over the last two to three years.

And a lot of that is because you have the large players, the Fords, the GM, the Toyotas of the world who are getting involved because they've seen the success of a Tesla and what they've been able to do.

You know, we have this great company in Canoe who's coming to Northwest Arkansas now and is going to do their research and development in their corporate headquarters and a piece of their manufacturing in Arkansas.

So it's moving faster than we've seen before.

And it's exciting that we're right here on the doorstep of it in Arkansas is helping to lead the way.

Well, let's start with these two companies, because in the past several days, one of them, the first vehicles to be manufactured, electric vehicles to be manufactured here, rolled off the assembly line that's right up in northeast Arkansas and right in Mississippi County.

And a company who is is now part of the footprint here in Arkansas as well.

So there's a lot of activity and energy going into to both of these companies.

We're excited to see it.

You know, and obviously, this is new market, new territory for for our state.

We're used to dealing with the traditional OEMs, the Fords and the GM's.

And, you know, Ford announced their big plans and in Tennessee, I guess some time last year over in Jackson.

So we'll see some impact from that as well, because they're going to be doing all electric vehicles there and their battery manufacturing so we'll see some supply chain from that.

So it just makes sense that you would have these other companies who are, you know, emerging and growing companies wanting to be a part of that and be close to to where some of these other big players have located over the past really two decades.

Mr. Secretary, Arkansas was said to be and I'm going back about 20 years here, at least two.

Arkansas was said to be in the running for a major auto plant or multiple auto plants.

And we always came a little bit short.

It was said at the time, sometimes in whispers, that our problem was labor force and the absence of of of skilled labor.

What what changed over the past two decades?

Well, you know, I think we have the labor here.

You know, I would contest with that maybe at the time we did.

And I think right now we absolutely do.

Not only do we have the labor, but we have the great training programs in place through our partnerships with our our two year schools.

And our colleges are career and technical education centers.

We've come a long way in terms of our ability to to train our workforce and have a workforce that is nimble and can shift to the demands of industry.

And the automobile industry is one that certainly we can compete in.

I think where we were deficient previously was having a good site that would, you know, shovel ready, that a company could come in and say we're going to break ground and we need 1500 acres to be able to do it.

We didn't have that.

And that was part of the reason why we lost out on projects before.

We now have several great sites around our state that would be classified as a mega site, and I think that allows us to get into the competition for some of these larger projects.

You know, though, obviously we're talking about the electric vehicle projects that we've had here have been more of a smaller footprint.

We're going into an existing building, other one really focusing more on the research and development in corporate headquarters.

But in terms of land labor availability, we have it, and there's no reason that we can't compete.

And I'd like to think that when we do get the call from the next large assembly plant because of what we've done in the last several years, they're going to be right there at the front competing for it.

Well, another big one has been and there evidently is more to come, and that's warehousing or distribution points facilities.

Can you bring us up to speed on that?

Is there something.

Yeah, yeah.

The warehousing and distribution.

I mean, you know, you look at just like a company like tractor Supply, who was one that did really well during the pandemic.

People, you know, took to the, you know, work at home and do home projects more so than they did before.

So a company like Tractor Supply really expanded their footprint and grew their stores.

We just announced this, I guess, the first quarter of this year, a huge expansion with them where they're going to come into our state and create a distribution facility and MOML, you know, investing, you know, a couple hundred million dollars of capital, creating 400 jobs because they want to be in the heart of the country and be able to supply those stores that are doing so well.

So in terms of, you know, supply chain and just logistics and distribution Arkansas has always been a leader in that, but more so I'd say now with the the pandemic and what we've seen from supply chain issues, things coming from overseas, people really want to focus more on domestic availability in Arkansas being right here in the heart of the country, great access to, you know, two thirds of the rest of the country within a day's drive, interstate access going north, south and east and west and then our rail infrastructure.

Couple that with what we've got in our great waterways where we can move freight very easily, logistics transportation, we're in the heart of it, work and continue to see projects like that come into Arkansas.

Well, in terms of of what we got some good news only Friday morning and that was in terms of the state labor situation, actually, the job situation, unemployment situation.

We did we held firm at 3.1% unemployment.

That continues to be a historic low that we've seen in Arkansas.

So we hit that know a little over a month ago, the lowest that we've ever been.

But we look at the details in the numbers.

What was most reassuring to me is that we actually saw some growth in our labor pool.

We obviously had a significant loss there during the pandemic because of people just exiting the labor pool permanently, whether for an early retirement or, you know, dealing with child care issues and not wanting to come back into the labor force.

We're seeing those numbers now, albeit slow.

They're starting to tick back up in the right direction.

So that's good to see.

In fact, we're actually one of only ten states that have recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic actually have more people employed today than we did prior to the pandemic.

Now they look a little bit differently.

Obviously, not all the hospitality and retail jobs have come back, all the restaurants aren't stepped up to where they were.

But we've been able to survive, bring in new companies, and we're seeing those jobs are starting to fill, which does mean more people into our labor force more people working now in Arkansas than we actually did prior to the pandemic.

And again, we're one of only ten states that can say that right now.

Well, that feeds into my next question, which was do you see the stress easing anyway on employers in terms of labor available labor availability?

You know, it's going to continue to be a difficult situation, I think, for employers for a number of months, you know, with inflation rising and things just costing more.

You know, I think people money that people have set aside maybe to keep them through is going to run shorter than they had anticipated.

And we'll see this accelerated some of the people coming back into the workforce a little bit quicker than we had originally anticipated.

You know, inflation is a struggle for everybody.

But if you're going to look for a silver lining within that, it might result in people coming back into the labor.

Into the labor pool a little bit sooner than we had normally anticipated.

But for the time being, yeah, there's going to continue to be pressure on business owners as they're looking to hire recruit people to come in back into the workforce.

Well, a significant factor in and in prices, of course, is our inflation anyway, is fuel prices, gasoline and and and diesel.

How big a drag do you anticipate that's going to be in the next couple of three quarters?

Oh, it will.

It'll be absolutely a drag for the, you know, the next few quarters until we can get inflation under control and to fuel prices back down to a reasonable, manageable amount is what you're going to see is this, you know, eventually, you know, hitting all the consumers because we're going to have to pay more for our goods and services.

You're going to see a big impact in our agriculture sector because of the cost of shipping is going up, because the cost of just doing everything is going up.

Not to mention that, you know, there's a war going on over in Europe and what's happening with in Ukraine right now.

And the product that was was shipped in from here.

We might not feel it just yet, but eventually it's going to make its way over to us.

And the loss of coming in from from wheat and fertilizer that we've imported from that part of the world is going to impact agriculture.

So there's going to be a lot of issues that are are seen with that for a number of quarters to come.

And obviously, the fuel prices is a big factor in it.

Well, you mentioned fuel and fertilizer, just two plus export possibilities, export import impact.

Have you been in touch?

Surely you have with your counterpart over in the AG Department, Secretary of Agriculture.

Yes.

What's the early outlook for for AG in Arkansas this season?

The sort of AG is still, you know, the driver of our economy here.

That's number one.

And, you know, we like to think that our prospects look pretty good with the growing seasons and, you know, our export ability and the state, we look to be in pretty good shape.

You know, obviously defer to Secretary Ward and his team to to get into the details of the numbers.

But agriculture still is such a big driver of our state.

We look really closely in terms of our economic development team here at Forestry.

Forestry as part of agriculture, is one of the largest components of it.

And we're seeing a significant uptick in our forestry product with lumber prices going up and, you know, people starting to reopen some mills, we're seeing that part of the agriculture economy come back so I'd like to think and I'll be, you know, optimistic about it that we'll have a good year for Arkansas.

Well, and finally, this to share with fuel prices with the ag situation, kind of uncertain war in Eastern Europe and inflation.

Chairman Powell says he and his colleagues are going to do what they have to do in terms of interest rates.

And that means at least, what, two or three more increases.

How is that going to impact economic development here, commerce in the next two or three quarters?

You know it currently well, and obviously the Fed is going to raise rates.

They've indicated that, you know, it could be, you know, four or five if not more times throughout the course of the year.

So, you know, we've probably gone along a little bit too long without seeing that.

So I think it's not unexpected I think most industries, obviously, the financial services and the banking industry is prepared for it.

What it will probably see is there will be some slowing down to the economy.

I don't want to say that, you know, we're going to go back into a recession, but at some point, yes, we will have a correction.

We'll end up in a recession, hopefully won't be as bad of a dip.

But the other thing I will say is that because of the pandemic and the extended length of time that companies kind of sat on the sideline and not making those investment decisions and and going into new areas, we are seeing that really ramp up right now.

Our team is incredibly busy with prospects coming into Arkansas, looking at doing projects, looking to put to use some of that capital that they've been sitting on for a while to invest in their facilities and invest in their people and hire new people.

So our team is going to continue to push forward on that and diversify our economy.

So if we do end up into a recession, we're going to be, you know, not hit as hard as other areas because we do have a a very diverse economy in our state.

Well, I wish we could continue, Mr. Secretary, but we're simply out of time.

We thank you, as always, for yours.

Come back soon.

Thank you.

And that does it for us for this week.

As always, we thank you for watching.

And we'll see you next week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and KUAR FM 89.