Second, support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.

Hello and thank you for joining us.

How Michael Hoefflin, news director of KUR.

I'll be sitting in for Steve Barnes for this part of the program, with new cases outpacing recoveries.

Arkansas is at the epicenter of the Corona virus outbreak, the Delta variant, which is 50% more contagious than the original strain, is tearing through the state.

Cases are up, hospitalizations are up.

Deaths are up per capita.

Arkansas leads the nation in new cases, according to Johns Hopkins University, the vaccination rate remains one of the worst in the country.

About 35% of Arkansans are fully vaccinated, compared to 48% nationwide.

And we'll see what more of the state can do about this.

One person leading the charge is state epidemiologist Doctor Jennifer Dillehay.

With the Arkansas Department of Health, she joins us now.

Thank you for being here, Doctor.

Thank you for having me today.

It seemed like we were really putting this behind us, but the last few weeks have not been good.

First, what's your assessment of the situation right now?

Well, right now we are having widespread delta variant entering our communities.

This variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 is highly infectious.

It causes more severe disease.

It's more quick to put people in the hospital and at younger ages.

So For these reasons we are experience of a large number of new cases because the younger people.

We're not the ones who've been getting the vaccine.

It's been the older adults who are now protected.

Explain how this variant developed.

So whenever someone gets infected with a virus that causes COVID-19, that virus multiplies in their body as it multiplies, it gains mutations.

It makes mistakes in the way it copies itself.

Most of these mutations have no effect, but occasionally the mutations are in such a way that it changes the behavior of the virus and the delta variant had mutations in a place that is on the spike protein.

This mutations enable the spike protein to stick more avidly to human cells and are more likely to cause infections.

They have other mutations at what as well that are likely to cause it to be able to.

Can't make people sicker so the more spread the more mutations and the more spread, the more likely the highly infectious variants are the ones that are going to outcompete the others and that's what we're seeing.

The Delta variant is so highly infectious it is out competing.

All of the other variants.

Governor Hutchinson noted on Twitter this week.

98% of the people hospitalized in the state since January.

Are those who have not been vaccinated?

What is the state doing to try and reach these people and?

Overcome this vaccine hesitancy.

Well, one is.

We're trying to communicate the urgency of this situation.

This virus is spreading so fast that people need to start getting vaccinated.

Now with the Pfizer, the Moderna vaccines, for example, it takes five or six weeks to develop full immunity and people need both doses to get the immunity they need for the full protection.

For this variant, one dose doesn't protect nearly as well as two doses.

So making sure people understand that they know where to get the vaccine and the vaccines are at no cost to them.

Those are basic pieces of information that we're trying to relay.

Were pride fighting, support to health care professionals, and arranging for training so they can have a deeper background in the vaccine as well as some of the misinformation so they can help patients sort through the real information?

From the misinformation, it all sounds very plausible, and unless you have a background in science or medicine or know about the vaccine, it's hard to tell the difference.

And then we're working with local communities and community leaders so that they can also have a voice in supporting their towns, communities, organizations with the correct information.

So that people can make an informed decision about the vaccines.

There are so many people making decisions not to get the vaccines, but they're not well informed.

They're making decisions based on that information.

What about people who have had the virus and recovered?

Do they need to get vaccinated?

Yes, the vaccine is recommended for people, even if they've had COVID-19, it's likely if they had it before it is not the delta variant and there are some differences and we want them to have a robust immune response to the delta variant.

We know that if you take serum from people who've had COVID-19 and you compare it to the serum, people who've been vaccinated, the people who are vaccinated had have higher levels of neutralizing.

Antibody these are the proteins in our blood that blocked the virus.

When you get infected and the vaccines produce a higher level and it's very likely that people will need that higher level, more of a cushion if you want to look at it that way to fight the virus.

If they were to be infected.

You mentioned getting community leaders involved in.

That seems like what Governor ASA Hutchinson has been working to do this week.

He's held a series of town hall meetings around the state.

The first was last week in Cabot.

This week, he's been in Batesville Blytheville, Forest City, another was scheduled for Texarkana.

And these are smaller communities.

Sees said that he's really making an effort to visit smaller towns and cities.

Rural areas that are getting the have the lowest vaccination rates.

Why is there such a disproportionate difference here between urban and rural areas when it comes to people getting vaccinated?

Well, uh, what we know is that a lot of times people will get vaccinated or not vaccinated, or according to their social network.

So if there are a lot of people in a rural area that are not vaccinated, it's harder for individuals to go against what their community is doing.

It takes a lot of courage for people to do that, and so by addressing this at a Community level.

And the smaller rural areas that enables the community to pull together and all get vaccinated together.

I think that's an important strategy because we are influenced by who we associate with and those are the people we trust.

So if we can get good information into those communities so that they can make informed decisions, I think more people will get vaccinated.

And I watched the governor's meeting in Blytheville on Tuesday and he had people like Meyers law enforcement pastors from churches.

He specifically made a call for pastors to get members of their congregations on board.

So it seems he's really.

Making a direct push to pull these people into the effort and not just lead from Little Rock.

I think that's a very important thing is, you know we want people to make informed decisions about these vaccines.

We don't want people to have severe illness and then realize the information they had was wrong and that they could have gotten vaccinated or would have gotten vaccinated if they had just understood that information.

So the way to do that is to have community conversations with people they trust.

So that they can be open to new information.

And as I mentioned, you know people will often do what their social network does, and if their social network realizes that the vaccines are safe and they're effective, and that COVID-19, especially the delta variant, is a very bad actor.

It's not just a mild case of the flu that many people are suffering from this for months afterwards, then I think.

People can make a more informed decision.

One concern I heard raised was were about a month from the start of the new school year.

With the spread at this pace, what could that mean if schools start?

Well, I think that it's going to be important for schools to start and to take whatever measures they need to take to lessen the spread of COVID-19 in the school setting.

That means that all of the kids who are eligible for vaccination 12 and older need to start getting vaccinated now if they're not vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, that's what they're authorized for.

And then also everyone around.

The kids needs to be vaccinated.

The teachers and the staff, the older siblings and the adults, the parents.

They all need to protect these kids and the school year by getting vaccinated because the younger kids cannot yet get vaccinated.

Have we ever seen an outbreak this widespread in our history, and if So what was the outcome?

Well, I seem to recall that we had a pandemic in 1918 with influenza and that did not go so well because back then they didn't know what caused influenza and they had no vaccine and people were scared and it was highly transmissible.

So I think that we have seen this before, but for many people it's not in their life.

Time, So what we need to do is learn as much as we can as quickly as we can and support one another.

We need to pull together as communities.

It's not just about individual people, but it's about families and communities.

Businesses keeping the economy going and keeping the hospitals available for people who really need to be in the hospital.

The vaccine still has got not gotten formal approval from the FDA.

Once it does get that approval, Governor Hutchinson said private businesses would be able to require employees to get vaccinated.

Do you think we will see an approval soon?

Well, both of Pfizer and Moderna have submitted their data to the FDA.

It will take some months for them to review it.

Of course, the FDA does their own analysis of the data.

They don't just take what the pharmaceutical companies give them, so they're performing that analysis now and my hope is that we will have a fully licensed vaccines by the end of the year.

I don't know if that's possible.

If they can review the data.

That fast, but I think that it's very possible within the next several months that we will have a fully licensed vaccine.

In the meantime, do you think that people who have been vaccinated should be wearing masks in public?

So the CDC says that people who are fully vaccinated do not need to wear a mask in public.

However, they also add that there are some people who may wish to wear a mask and that would be people who are older who are have chronic health conditions or a weakened immune system that would increase their risk for a severe disease.

If they were to be infected in spite of being fully vaccinated, and of course we know some people do not respond as robustly to the vaccines as people who have normal immune systems, so those people may wish to take an extra step to protect themselves, knowing that with the delta variant, the proportion of people who are fully vaccinated.

It's a little bit larger in terms of who will have breakthrough disease, so breakthrough disease is just someone who's fully vaccinated.

That's Doctor Jennifer Delahay, state epidemiologist.

Thanks very much for your time.

Coming up a conversation between Steve Barnes and the future leaders of our communities, cities and state.

Stay with us.

You know boys state and girls state weeklong summer sessions that allow incoming high school seniors a deep dive into government and politics.

We have concluded now the election of governors and that means Samia Smith of Little Rock.

For girl State Boise State delegates actually elected 2 governors this session, and appropriately so.

One for the class of 2021.

Which did not could not meet owing to the coronavirus pandemic that governorship was won by Dardanelles Michael Finkenbiner, the class of 22 Governor Richard Ware of Hope.

And we have all three governors with us now, and thank you very much.

All of you for being with us, Miss Smith.

Let's start with you.

I want to go to all of you.

But Miss Smith.

Let's start to eat.

To start with you.

I want you to take a look around the state across the state and across the country and tell me in your estimation, where is the American public right now?

Where is public opinion?

How do you feel about your state?

How do you feel about your country?

Uhm, that's a great question.

I would say public opinion right now is very split up.

I would say specifically in Arkansas when you're looking at voting, especially for our age group.

For younger kids, it's come it's lower than many other States and so I think as a state right now as far as participation with politics with citizenship with everything you know, we've been working a lot to get those.

Numbers up and get the youth participating and so I think as a whole, though, you know, while everybody may have different points of views and everybody is coming from different areas, I think it's very important that we all work to, you know get the youth involved more because we are the future after all.

And so I think as far as public opinion goes, that's kind of where we stand.

That's kind of OK Mr.

Thinking what do you think?

Yes, Sir, and I think it's me.

It brings up some very good points in that regard.

Right now, public opinion, especially in Arkansas, but across the entire nation, really is all over the place.

We're very divided whole or ized.

We're divided by our race or class are created almost everything, and if there's anything that I saw that I think was especially impactful while I was at Boise State in that regard, was the fact that in many ways as we worked through that week, we were able to overcome a lot of those discrepancies we were able to work through them, work together to find common grounds, and in a lot of ways it really gives me hope for what lies ahead Mr. Where give us your take.

As for me and Michael said, there's a lot of polarization in just division within our great country, and I've seen, especially in Arkansas, that as Michael said, we are divided by race.

We are divided by our class and I believe that in order to promote this idea of unity, we just need to come together and, uh, create legislation, create opportunity and just create a culture that involves community.

And that's my take on Arkansas.

Polarization in the United States so well.

I mean, I'll stay with Mr. Ware and then we'll workout way back where what Mr where do you see what?

Where is the common ground that that Michael talked about and how to bring that about?

What are the issues that could create common ground?

I believe that the issues that could create common ground stem primarily from education.

If we create a more educated populace as to why some people may think in a certain way that promotes division and polarization in the United States, then I believe that we can reach that common ground of unity and unity was something that I ran my Boy State campaign on.

And if we bring more unity and togetherness to find that common ground between people, and I believe that we can create a better state.

Yeah Mr Finkenbinder, then you don't think it's a fool's errand.

No, I really don't think it is.

I mean, whenever we're looking at common ground in terms of politics right now, we may disagree on exactly what it is that we need to do, how we need to accomplish things, but there is a general agreement among everyone from every party, every background that we need to do, what we can to support the people that make up our state, and that make up our nation.

And I think that moving forward as we find compromises we find.

Areas like education, like certain pieces of infrastructure development and investment and things like that just to help people and to support our state in our country as it grows.

I think that's where we're going to find that common ground that we need Miss Smith.

Let me go back to you now because you mentioned at the top of the broadcast top of the segment that you were dismayed bottle over a voter participation, particularly in your age demographic.

How to invigorate that demographic?

How to get?

Younger people to the polls in greater numbers.

Yes, well I believe it first starts off with kind of relieving the pressure that we already have on ourselves.

I think we're constantly told that you know, yes, we're the upcoming generation, but we have to feel the pressure of being the best and coming up with all the ideas and doing everything right.

And I don't think that's the best, you know, way to go about it.

I think it's important to recognize that everybody's valuable in different ways.

Not everybody needs to be a leader.

Not everybody has to be, you know, in the forefront.

Everybody has their own way to participate in government in whichever way it is.

And so I think if we encourage young people.

Not only to just you know, run for office and vote.

That's also great, but get involved where they feel most passionate, where they feel most comfortable.

I think that's the best way to go about.

You know, bridging that gap between voting and getting younger people to vote more in our state.

Well, Miss Smith say with you for just a second are younger people simply turn a lot of younger people turned off by what they see in the public arena today in terms of our public dialogue?

Uhm, yes.

I definitely think that can.

That's the part of it because you know, and part of it is just media as a whole.

You know you see the toxic environment that's constantly put around politics and anything of that nature.

It's always just kind of been one side against the other.

You know I have to be right or you have to be wrong.

It's it's never really been something where you can sit down and talk to a person and understand them before you can even say OK, let me see we're coming from let's find.

Some type of common ground, I think that you know with we just the environment that it is and now a lot of people our age decide to kind of stay away and I think it's our job, you know to mitigate that, that type of negative area and make it a positive place where people can talk about politics and their beliefs.

Yeah Mr Finkenbinder it is ours is a pretty toxic political culture right now.

How to fight that?

Well, I think one of the most important things in that regard is trying to create an inclusive environment where we actually encourage dialogue.

That's part of the problem with the polarization and the dissent that we have right now is just the fact that instead of talking about these things, instead of actually trying to find common ground trying to compromise.

People on both sides of the aisle of the issue simply stick to their guns and refuse to find that middle ground and in the end because of that, things just don't get done.

It creates an environment where people feel like their ideas that maybe don't necessarily align one way or the other aren't welcome and it just hinders progress and the ability to really make a change.

Thoughts?

I certainly believe that if we try to eliminate negative discourse between people, that we can create a culture that is more inclusive in that promotes ideas that we might not have even considered before, and we could see a lot of polarization present with who you voted for what you believe, and that might be the reason why many voters are age tries to turn away from the polls, turn away from the ballots because they're scared of what other people will say.

So if we create an inclusive environment that promotes talking general discourse that can promote change, promote bipartisanship, I believe that is a good way to eliminate that.

Well, sticking with Mr. Where do you see in your future?

Or would you consider elective office?

I would consider elective office.

In fact, I've been interested in politics since probably the 7th grade and I ran as Boise State governor because I want to help people.

I want to promote ideas of unity, solidarity and solutions.

I don't want to just talk about problems I want to solve problems and help people.

So that is part of the reason why I consider elective office in my future.

Mr finkenbinder.

I feel the exact same way.

I mean I've been involved in different organizations for as long as I can remember, like 4H and a lot of the work that I've done through my membership and all of this organization assisting like community service trying to get involved in outreach to help the people around me, and one of the things that I've kind of come to realize because of that, is that I want to do everything that I can to help my community, my state, my country, and I would absolutely consider elected office as a way to do that.

Forward, because that's one of the ways that you can truly have an impact.

Miss Smith yes, as far as my future plans, I think that while I'm not necessarily interested in going into government, I think I will continue to be a social advocate.

I'll continue to speak up.

I'll continue to, you know, work to improve my community and those around me.

I think that you know it.

It's always a possibility because you know you never know what can happen.

But you know, I don't.

I don't think it's necessary.

You know, even if I don't want to go into that.

Area, that doesn't mean I have to stop advocating for those who need advocating for and.

So yes, I think that while I may not be going into that area, I will still continue to, you know, push for awareness and equality in all areas.

Well, good luck.

All three of you thank you so much for being with us.

Our 3 governors, Governor Smith, Governor Finkenbinder governor where thank you very much for your time and the best of luck to you.

Thank you for joining us.

See you next week.

Second, support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and KAR FM 89.