Support for Arkansas provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and KUAR FM 89.

Hello again, everyone, thanks very much for joining us for the broadcast.

The daily assessment of COVID in Arkansas is an assortment of numbers always and of late.

Most of them have been bad.

Really bad.

Most still are.

But from Arkansas's own you, AMC, some new research that offers a bit of hope and perhaps more than a bit, we'll get to that in a moment with the experts.

first, some expert views on the political situation that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

A Republican primary for lieutenant governor, likely a very crowded Republican primary, six announced candidates thus far six candidates for an office with essentially no inherent power.

And in the meantime, there is thus far but one GOP candidate for the job that does have the power.

So what's at work here?

We're joined by Andrew de Mello, Capitol Bureau Chief of The Associated Press, and Richard Bearden, a longtime Arkansas Republican consultant.

Richard, we'll start with you.

I don't recall there very few Democratic primaries for any of us with with six candidates, so I suppose this goes to the vigor that the GOP is experiencing a bit of it has in Arkansas now.

Steve, I think you're exactly right.

Crowded field one is really kind of almost unexpected that you would have any candidate running for lieutenant governor.

But I think it goes to show the strength of how the Republicans have become the majority party in the state and the fact that you have a lot of candidates looking at Sarah Huckabee Sanders as the presumptive nominee and potentially maybe even governor and what role they'll feel in support of her as governor.

So it's going to be sort of a wild ride with a wide array of candidates, right?

Well, you've got a couple of factors in play and you just mentioned one of them, and that's Miss Sanders with a word like $12 million he's raised so far, I think.

And then but you have also have term limits in play as well.

With Gore, with one candidate who in particular.

That's right, and the current attorney, Leslie Rutledge, who is now switching run for lieutenant governor, and so again, also in that race, a state senator could very well have been termed out who has his own following and a former party chairman, popular party chairman, the state surgeon general, a very popular county judge and then our local attorney.

So in a wide variety of candidates running.

And Steve, you mentioned Sarah Huckabee Sanders fundraising.

Each of these lieutenant governor candidates have raised large sums of money, including the top three or four right now, over a quarter of $1,000,000 for a race.

Again, that's largely ceremonial.

So a lot of interest.

And I think there'll be a lot of stories intertwined in the next couple of months about the positions they take on the various issues out there.

Yeah.

Andrew de Mello.

I don't recall anyone like this, you know?

You know, the closest I can think of, you know, 2006 we had, you know, among the Democrats had a somewhat crowded campaign for lieutenant governor.

And that was when Bill Halter dropped out of the governor's race to run for lieutenant governor.

And you know, this is somewhat similar to that, and this is kind of unusual that this was not the race.

If you talk to anyone a year ago, two years ago, what they thought was going to be the most heated and kind of the most headline grabbing race of this year's primary.

They would not have said the lieutenant governor's race, but we're already getting a sense of that.

You know, with, you know, Senator Rayford, you know, putting out statements questioning Attorney General Rutledge is spending on on TV radio ads.

You have the surgeon general launching a website going after both Rayford and Rutledge.

And you know, we're kind of kind of seeing this now where this is a field that ideologically there's not much daylight among any of these candidates.

So I think we're going to start seeing a lot more of these type of attacks where they're going to be looking at each other's records, they're going to be looking at each other's spending.

And this is probably going to be the race that's going to take up a lot of the a lot of the attention this spring .

There used to be something Richard Riordan call the 13th commandment.

I think that fell by the wayside sometime back.

It was inevitable, I suppose.

Well, I agree.

I saw in the paper today where the attorney general down on the border with Governor Abbott and a number of other officials talking about border security, which again, that's now sort of front and center.

You know, you've got a candidate they're all trying to make find the silver bullet that kind of puts them out front.

And so you've got two elected officials, the attorney general and a state senator, all of whom have been in office for five years and then a bunch of other candidates who've not run into statewide level and they're looking for that super bullet.

Right now, it seems to be, hey, the two as out there spent a lot of money, and if I'm lieutenant governor, I won't be doing it.

Well, Richard, you just mentioned Governor Abbott of Texas down there, and he's in a primary race.

I mean, in so many states, not just the South, but in the Midwest and the industrial Northeast and even in the in the Plains states, you have candidates who are trying to get to the right of an incumbent or at least the other night.

It's a race to the right.

Is this going to continue?

Well, I think to some degree it is, and it's brought the Trump factor.

You know, again right now, for a good example, the secretary of state, who was the first elected land commissioner now running for a second term for secretary of state, a former state senator, run against him as sort of a Trump guy.

So he's running to the right of a very conservative state.

And I think you're going to see that governor's race who who is the most right of the candidates out there and the one that most appeal to those Trump voters who might not be as plugged into the party apparat , but certainly understands the positions that Donald Trump takes?

Well, Andrew de Mello, this this could get this is fratricidal already.

It could get even bloodier, though.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think we're going to end up seeing this, you know, especially the lieutenant governor's race.

And you and some of the other primaries this spring, you know, Senator Bozeman is facing challenges from that, from the right.

And you know, the common theme, as we've said, is folks trying to run to the right of each other.

You don't really see any of these races among the Republicans where there's someone to really, you know, running, trying to run in the moderate lane.

And you have a lot of candidates who are trying to echo Trump in his rhetoric and a lot of his issues.

You're seeing critical race theory come up in races that it's not you wouldn't really think it's an it.

Think it's an issue like Secretary of State's race.

And you know you're you're seeing them kind of echo some of the same themes, like the of the surgeon general in his attacks on the attorney general and Senator Robert, you know, talking about the Little Rock swamp kind of borrowing the term from that from Trump.

So I think we're going to see a lot more of this in a lot of these Republican primaries.

You know, all up and down the ballot, Richard, as you know, these these all four constitutional officers until really in my life, my memory is correct.

And only the last 20 years they weren't regarded as stepping stones near term limits and factors into this a great deal.

You have a constitutional shuffle here or a shuffle anyway among constitutional officers.

Well, it's exactly right.

Again, case in point, current Lieutenant Governor Tim Griffin now flipped over to run for attorney general.

The current attorney general now or lieutenant governor.

The State Treasurer, lieutenant run for auditor and is a person who had been state land commissioner serving as his secretary of state.

So I think term limits as sort of things of the environment and everybody wakes up in the morning and sees himself as a governor, a candidate and a United States senator.

But when you've got folks already serving in those spots, you have to kind of sit around and like pattern, figure out when intro can fit you.

And so what you're going to see is the six senators or higher office state representatives looking to run for Senate Saudi officials look run for the state legislature, all waiting for the right turn to run for the bigger office.

Well, yeah, or at a minimum, stay in the arena.

Oh, no, it's exactly right.

And, you know, I think I had a friend of mine who always said, Hey, you know, when you get one party control in Arkansas, everything to some degree to a larger.

What we have, we have split, but a very, very short window of sort of parity in government.

When Democrats in the House and the Senate, for example, several years ago, it was a 50 to 40 split.

Now it's overwhelmingly Republican.

And so, you know, I think it has.

You're now seeing that local level Republicans gain control of the courts and the courthouses.

So everybody again, sort of that holding pattern until they the next opportunity to open up and how they can get government service.

Yeah.

Andrew Miller Richard just mentioned something second ago that and across the country with particularly in those states in which the GOP is especially dominant, the focus has been on the law.

Even school boards, quorum courts, city councils.

Are we starting to see that here?

We, in fact, we are in Arkansas.

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think I think we I think we are and I think that's, you know, part of what we're seeing with the Republican takeover of state offices here is, you know, Republicans are now looking at lower level offices while these local and local elections, even in areas that you would not have thought Republicans to to be competitive or try to be competitive in in the state, I think you're going to even see that here in Polansky County and in the Little Rock area.

And so this is just kind of part of the evolution of what's happening with with with Republicans.

I think Democrats in some parts of the state are going to be having to play defense in areas that you wouldn't think they would have to be playing defense.

And Andrew, I don't detect any way any weariness with with with Trumpism.

From from what we see in the polling here, no, yo yo.

Trump remains popular here.

I think, you know Sarah Sarah Sanders, unless something changes.

But before filing, she's you clear to get the Republican nomination nomination for governor.

And I think that's going to trickle down to a lot of these other races, too, where you have, you know, someone who has run on her experience as the press secretary for for former President Trump.

And you know, that's going to that's going to trickle down to a lot of these races.

And this is still a very Trumpian state.

You know, despite you, you've had some Republicans here trying to distance the state from that.

Even, you know, Governor Hutchinson, to some extent has, you know, tried and tried to distance a distance.

The states somewhat from that.

But I just I don't know if that is really going to change things here that much with the way things are shifting so much to the right.

Yeah.

Well, here's another question with all of that money with no at this time, no primary.

Presumably, it'll be a very easy primary, even as Sanders has won.

What is she going to do with all that money?

She's stacking it up on a daily basis, Richard?

Well, Steve, you did watch more basketball because one or two commercials on every Razorback game, usually Wednesday night or Saturday.

Yeah, she's she's talking a lot about making this state a great place to live for her kids.

So you're already seeing, you know, with with a nomination.

Well, and and and months ahead of a general election, a very feel good from Sarah Huckabee talking about the vision she has for this state.

My guess is you're going to continue to see those kinds of messages at the Super Bowl and all the way through the SEC tournament.

And then you're going to go into baseball and spring football and all kinds of other venues.

You know, when you have that absolute dominance of campaign cash or to do a lot of luxuries, including brain TV for a full year before the election or spreading it around in other ways.

You know, I think at some point we could see that where there's sort of a victory type she helps find, I have noticed she started the endorsement of some state senators or a number of them here recently also endorsed, I think, today.

Senator John Boozman.

So she is starting to spread some of her popularity around the power of her name.

And it could well be that the dollars follow those endorsements.

Yeah.

Andrew Andrew, any thoughts on that?

You know, I think the thing that'll be interesting to see with you're with has been with the spending from Sarah Sanders is does she moderate herself in any way?

You know, a big part of her message has been fighting the the radical left in Arkansas, which is state like Arkansas.

I'm not really sure where the radical left would be at this point.

And, you know, does she continue that message?

Is that still a general election message, or does she try to open up her message even more to the general population?

And also, when does she start getting into deeper specifics on what she wants to do on, you know, major policy proposals and think, you know, issues that have affected the state things like Medicaid expansion?

There's still a lot of areas where she is.

She's a blank blank slate right now.

And you know, at what point does she start filling those things out?

And so that's kind of the thing to watch, especially after a filing period.

And I think, Richard also point this out to that.

You're seeing this from other candidates that they're no longer trying to curry favor with Trump.

They're trying to curry favor with her.

And I think that's something you're going to see even more, especially during these primaries.

We'll keep watching and you guys will be back on the broadcast very, very soon.

I can assure you, thanks to both of you for coming aboard.

See you next time, and we'll be right back.

We're back and now to COVID.

A glimmer of hope, perhaps more than that reported this week at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

This particular coronavirus, as it first appeared, was frightful and frequently fatal enough.

But then came not one, but two variants successive offspring, if you will, of the original COVID 19.

So would we encounter one new variant after another, each one a setback?

The new Ames research suggests perhaps not.

Here to talk about it is the team leader of that research, Dr. David Ussery of Ames.

And we're joined also by Dr. Shane Spotts, dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for being with us, Dr. We will begin with you.

Are we?

Does your research suggests that Akron, if not the very last variant, could be among the very last.

Well, not in a since we don't know.

I mean, there's a lot that we don't know about the virus, but one of the good things is it is within these variants.

They are different, but not that different when you kind of look at the bigger picture.

So that's why I hedged that.

So one of the reasons that it says that there's limited mutation repertoire is that in fact, this virus is not mutating as bad as other viruses that that's the take home message.

So it becomes an easier target for modern medicine to hit or to shoot at.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

That's encouraging thing you often hear every couple of months in the press.

Oh, this new variant?

Oh, what are we going to do?

We're doomed to see another world now.

You know, and in general, the vaccines still continue to work and things.

And there are so many new treatments now that are coming out.

So so it's encouraging in that sense that it's not varying as much as people had originally here.

Can we predict the next very is there any predicting there, what shape it will take or.

Its severity, so so what we've noticed is is the time for this article, the three waves and the first wave.

No one really noticed just a variety of reasons that but only about 30% of the total infections.

If you look month by month, work from this first read the next variant through the alphabet.

That's when in the UK and about 70% on a monthly basis were of this.

The third one was the Delta one, which we're kind of experiencing out of is beginning to go down.

And that was 100% or close to 100%, like 9590 8%.

So each time that variants taking over more and more of the population because it's more virulent and the Omicron is even faster and it's more and spreading.

But the advantage with your backlog is it's not nearly as severe, so it could spread more quickly, but you don't seem to get sick.

And so in that sense, that's good news as well.

Yeah.

And in other yes, of course they will be.

Yeah, I wanted to go to Dr. Spice for just a second.

What in making rounds and dealing with his hands on in a clinical practice doctor, what are what concerns you about the next variant?

Not just the one that we have now.

So when we look, you know, we look across the globe, that's what you've got to do in terms of variants because, you know, by and large, that's where we're seeing them originate from.

The Omicron variant we're dealing with right now obviously originated, you know, in South Africa or other countries and then came here.

And that's a whole other conversation in terms of vaccination and worldwide vaccination that's needed.

But we do expect to see some other variant now.

We don't know.

It's a roll of the dice, whether that variant that we see next will be more transmissible.

Is it going to be easier to transmit even than Omicron, which is, of course, about five and a half times more transmissible than Delta?

Is it going to be more virulent meaning?

Is it going to cause more severe illness, higher hospitalizations, more ICU stays and things like that, which of course, we only have a finite amount of capacity for those resources in the state of Arkansas?

We really don't know.

The World Health Organization spoke on that this week and said, Look, the likelihood is we will certainly see another variant.

We don't know what it looks like.

We're encouraged by what we're seeing with Omicron.

In terms of yes, it seems to be milder.

I put milder in quotes because for some people, but my own patients included milder means you were in bed, sick for three to four days and couldn't work, couldn't go to school or couldn't carry on daily activities, which obviously impacts our workforce.

Stay with Dr. Spice for just a second.

Why are we seeing so many breakthrough cases?

I mean, what's this is an elusive variant, apparently.

Well, and when we say breakthrough, I think we've got to be, first of all, let's dial it back a little bit when we talk about infection in general and the body's ability to fight off infections based on antibodies in the general immune response of the human body, T cells and things of that nature.

The body needs memory cells to be able to fight off a virus to be able to have a strong initial response.

Those memory cells and I'm talking about come from two places either vaccination or through natural infection.

What we saw through Omicron is that because it genetically changed so much, we saw that the vaccines weren't as effective as they were with the original strain of the original COVID virus, as well as the delta, however we say wasn't as effective.

We're speaking primarily about symptomatic disease.

They're still very effective in terms of preventing hospitalization and death, and the data showing that the data showed that across the country that those that are actually vaccinated and boosted have a much lower chance of being hospitalized in the ICU or even suffering death from this right.

And so those are big, those are big pieces to remember.

So Omicron, really, there were over 60 different mutations in the Omicron virus variant itself.

32 of those occurred on the spike protein.

Remember, Delta had only ten mutations on the spike protein.

Alpha had only four.

And so we've got much more variation in terms of the genetics of the Omicron virus compared to the previous variants.

And so again, luckily, our hospitalization rate was about a third of what we would see or what we'd seen with the Delta variant.

And so we were lucky in that sense, but we don't know what the next variant when it comes.

What will it look like?

It's purely a roll of the dice, but it's encouraging in terms of what we're seeing with Macron.

Well, Dr. Ross, that to what your colleague there seems to be saying underscores your research.

So I'm wondering, does this indicate another the need soon for a yet another booster?

Or can we can we deduce that this year certainly help people with with weakened immune system?

And originally the boosters were for older people and they help that.

And it could be, I mean, if you look at the flu.

You get your flu shot every year, right?

And and so this isn't as variable as a flu in that sense.

But but but nonetheless, I think boosters help.

That helps.

Yeah.

Not quite.

Yeah.

The other piece we need to remember is when this started, there was no secret formula in terms of, Hey, this is the number of vaccines or number of shots you're going to need to be fully protected from this variant or that variant.

Take polio, for example.

That's a four shot series for polio.

It's four shot to be able to get lasting immunity.

Israel has already published data in terms of what does it look like to have another booster or four shots?

And really, against Macron, they're not seeing any real benefit.

So right now, the answer is the full vaccine series that you're seeing, plus a booster vaccine is sufficient for what we currently have in terms of the circulating strain of Omicron that we're seeing here in our country.

And of course, in the state.

Is that going to change in the future?

Well, the conversation will certainly change it, as my colleague mentioned, and it would not be surprising at all that once we move into more of an endemic level of transmission that we do have some sort of annual vaccine, the vaccines will change to the current data now and the current research on vaccines.

In terms of what we're going to see the next generation of COVID vaccines, they're going to be more specific to the virus itself and be able to hopefully mitigate the variants that occur.

So being able to actually show that we see a variant that comes out the vaccine will still be effective, you know, and it was already mentioned the flu vaccine.

When you get your flu vaccine, that's not just one strain of influenza that's in that vaccine's multiple strains.

That's what are called travaillent or quadrivalent.

And some of the doses are higher again, as was mentioned that we use for senior citizens.

So we'll get better at tweaking these vaccines to protect the population well.

And we've got a few seconds remaining.

And I want to say with both doctors and not spies, we'll begin with you.

I'm going to ask a question that I'm sick of asking, and I suspect you're sick of hearing.

And that is why do we have an end in sight?

Or is this some in some way or another, the new normal, this dealing with viruses all the time?

Dr.

So I think we're, as we've seen so far, we've already seen waves.

I think you'll continue to see some waves.

It would be naive to think that next fall, we're not going to see any Koven of any type.

So we'll see some crops, some types of wipes.

What are those variants look like?

How transmissible early, how variant that's going to be a roll of the dice.

And again, that's underscores the need for a vaccine.

We've got much, much better medications, much better treatments.

We know how to treat COVID a lot better.

The concern is in terms of are we going to see another spike in cases that can overwhelm our health care system?

So what we need to do, certainly in Arkansas and across the nation, is rethink our health care delivery system to be able to manage these waves so that we're not so taxed whenever we come into them.

Yeah.

Dr. Archer, when you get the last word here.

Well, so so our canoe, you wrote this famous book, The Plague and this virus comes to this village.

A lot of people die and then it disappears, and it's kind of seemingly random and it happens.

And in a way, cobra.

It's been humbling for us because this Newbery comes, lots of people die and then it disappears.

Another very comes.

And so we don't know.

Gentlemen, we doctors, we thank you for your time, we'll have to leave it there.

We'll have to leave it there, continue to mask and I assume you'll want everybody to take the jab.

So anyway, thanks everybody for joining us.

That's all the time we have for this week.

See you next week.

Support for Arkansas week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Arkansas Times and KUAR FM 89.