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

The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.

Hello everyone and thank you for joining us.

I'm Donna Terrell in for Steve Barnes.

It's been a busy week in Arkansas, Arkansas medical personnel have asked lawmakers to make changes to the law that bans a mask mandate in public schools.

The governor and leaders in the legislature say they are discussing it on Tuesday, the state released new coronavirus guidelines for schools.

Also on Tuesday, the CDC revised its guidelines to recommend indoor masks for everyone at schools, regardless of vaccination status.

So here to talk about these new guidelines are Doctor Joel, Thomlison, physician in outbreak response at the Arkansas Department of Health, and Kimberly Mundell, Communications director for the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education for the Arkansas Department of Education.

I want to thank both of you for joining me for this really important discussion.

Obviously a lot happening right now in terms of COVID, but to get started since these guidelines were just released, let's talk about them, and Kimberly, I want to start with you.

Let's kind of go through the guidelines to some extent here with what we can expect.

Obviously the masks that's been a big deal in the state.

So what are the guidelines for masks in schools?

So basically you know what we did is we worked very closely with the Department of Health and the Governor's Office to develop some guidelines.

And again these are just guidelines for school districts to consider as they develop their back to school plans.

We provided some guidelines last year prior to the start of school and we asked districts to really work with their local communities to determine what was going to work best for them and these guidelines serve that same purpose districts did.

An amazing job last year of keeping their doors open by the end of the school year we were open schools were open for the entire school year.

By the end of school, a little more than 80% of students were learning on site and out of the entire school year.

Little over 71% of schools had no schoolwide or grade level modification due to the virus, so that's a true testament to the planning.

The preparation that school districts.

Put in place prior to the start of school last year and so this set.

This set of guidelines pretty much outlines some some things that they should consider as well.

OK, so indoors masks are recommended for those who are not fully vaccinated.

What about people who are?

Well, you know, I know that the CDC just released some new guidance yesterday, and I know we are reviewing that in partnership with Department of Health and so that new CDC guidance is not reflected in this.

Whether or not some changes will be made will be determined at a later date, as we've had a chance to really review that.

But I do want to stress that we cannot mandate masks, but you know, we definitely encourage those two who are not vaccinated to mask as well as those who.

Who feel the need to do so?

OK, so Doctor Tom listen, let's talk about this for a minute.

Children's Hospital this week at the height and and by Friday it may have risen even more.

But 24 kids in the hospital with COVID 7 in ICU, 4 on a ventilator.

This is a 50% increase over previous peaks during the pandemic.

Does that concern you?

I mean, we talk about how things went last year.

Not as many children were getting COVID because we weren't dealing with the delta.

A variant, so how confident are you with these guidelines, knowing that these numbers at Children Children's Hospital are going up?

Well, I think it.

It shows that, UM, the Delta variant is seeming to have a stronger effect on younger people than we saw earlier in the pandemic, meaning that there are more cases of severe disease in younger people then we saw previously.

Now I would say that if all the measures that were taken last year by schools are continued to be implemented, those multiple layers of prevention strategies, if they're still all in place.

Then then we can have school successfully.

The fewer prevention measures that we have in place will mean more spread within schools.

We were actually quite successful at preventing significant spread in schools last year, more than I am better than I anticipated, because schools and districts did such a good job of layering those strategies together.

There were plenty of cases that came into school because the community transmission was very high, but the school classroom was not a place of significant spread and we want to emphasize.

All those strategies that are listed in the document schools should do as many of them as they possibly can.

How confident are you that that will happen this time around, considering the fact that there is a thing called COVID fatigue?

Well, COVID fatigue is real.

I know we've all felt that in our own lives and practices I would just say I think people are realizing this summer now as a delta variant has caused such a significant rise in cases that we're not done with this yet.

And I think that is helping many people get over the COVID fatigue and I and I know schools are taking it seriously as well, and so we want to have people do as many of those as possible.

Anyone measure by itself is not going to be solely effective.

Vaccination is the best measure you can take.

It's the most effective measure of all of them.

However, it shouldn't be a stand alone either.

There are other strategies, masking reasonable distancing, cohorting all those things that are talked about in the document can be added to vaccination and remember in elementary settings and elementary children aren't able to be vaccinated yet, so we really need those multiple layers of strategies, so Kimberly is there.

At all any discussion with schools and terms of encouraging more children over 12 to get vaccinated is the school system doing that, or are you kind of standing away from that?

Well, that's something that we're definitely encouraging is for anyone 12 and older to get vaccinated.

And that is one of the first lines of defense against the virus.

And so we're highly encouraging that and, you know, parental involvement is important with that as well, so it's something that we're encouraging on the state level.

But it's definitely a personal choice at the at the end of that.

But we do know that the vaccinations do help, and so that's one of the other tools in the toolkit this year that is available to parents, two students, and two educators as well.

How are you handling situations where kids may have been exposed to COVID?

So in the guidance, and basically if someone is fully vaccinated and is exposed and is not showing any signs of any symptoms of COVID, then in essence they pretty much don't have to quarantine unless they're showing symptoms.

But they have to be fully vaccinated this year in the guidance individuals that are exposed to a confirmed case of COVID will not need to quarantine if they have no symptoms, and if both people have been properly.

And consistently wearing their masks.

So that's an incentive for people to wear masks.

Again, it's not required.

We can't mandate that, but it is encouraged.

Now there are some higher risk areas in school, and you know, we dealt with this last year.

You know, if you have kids who play instruments, or you know the performing arts as well as athletics, how are you handling that?

Is it?

Is there a difference this year from last year, or is it basically the same thing?

And we also defer to the Department of Health on that on those guidelines in.

In our document, we did provide links to those guidelines for those various activities, so we would encourage districts and parents to review those and be aware of those in light of the current situation.

Doctor Tom listen.

Do you know what those guidelines are?

Well, the guidelines are similar to what was recommended last year for athletic teams.

Other higher risk activities where you know the difficulty is if we're going to play basketball, for instance, basketballs indoors, and you can't play defense without being in close contact with someone.

So what are the other things we can do in those situations to mitigate risk?

A lot of coaches, a lot of athletic directors changed a lot about the way they did practice.

They changed the the groupings that practice.

Was done the way they did practice to keep people in close contact for shorter periods of time as much as possible, and the emphasis is on doing as many things as possible too.

That can be done to prevent infection in practice, time etc.

At some point, if we're going to play sports, we're just going to have to accept the risk that that's a higher risk setting for spread.

And that was born out in in the school year.

There was definitely more spread among some sports teams then there was in the classroom in general.

But sports are an important part of students lives and for their mental health and physical health.

And so you know, this state leadership and education leaders around the state and schools decided it was important to keep it going and so many measures were taken to make it as safe as possible.

That's the message again this year.

So Doctor Tom listen.

What do you say to the parent out there?

And there are some who are saying they're not going to send their kids back to school.

They still want them to study virtually.

What do you say to those parents?

Well, you know.

As a parent, I know that the health of our own child is very important to us and it's our responsibility to make the best decisions for them.

So certainly those parents need to weigh all the factors that they consider important and make that decision.

I would say that.

If your school and if you can talk to your school about the measures that they're taking, are they going to have those multiple layers of strategies put together?

Ask them about spacing.

Ask them about masking.

Ask them about you.

Know other measures they're taking in the lunchroom, etc.

And if those measures are in place, I think you can be confident that your child can go to school safely.

It's never risk free.

We're never risk free even if we just stay in our own homes, because anybody that goes out of the home could bring the virus.

In right, but there are things that we know now that work at helping keep spread of the virus down.

We just have to do.

Those in.

Schools are taking those measures seriously and we encourage them to keep as many of those measures in place as possible.

OK, we have about a minute left.

What if there's an outbreak?

Are you going to basically do what you did last year?

Yes, I would say so.

Last year we had a good system where schools kind of served as an early warning system to contact the Department of Health.

Give us the information they had on the case.

We searched through our records to see if that was complete.

We had, you know, Skype calls with district leaders and health personnel with our team here at the Department of Health and with the department education conferred on the situation to see what the risk is and made made.

Recommendations and decision about what what needed to happen going forward.

I'm trying to prevent spread going forward in classroom settings etc, but also advising on how long any changes need to be in place and I would anticipate that word seemed to work well last year and will keep doing it this year.

Well, one thing is for sure, you have the benefit of having experienced last year, so there are certain protocols in addition to the guidance that you've come out with.

There are protocols in place and you know what to do.

You know how to react.

Unfortunately we have to go through this whole thing all over again, but hopefully it will go smoothly.

I wish you both the best.

Thank you Doctor Thomlison for joining us and Kimberly Mundell.

Thank you also.

We will be right back.

Hospitals across the state continued to reach capacity with COVID-19 patients joining us to talk about the impact on our health care system are Bull Riehl, President and CEO of the Arkansas Hospital Association and Doctor Chad Rogers, Chief Medical Officer for the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care.

I want to thank both of you for joining me for this segment of Arkansas Week, you know.

Seems like a broken record because we talked about getting this vaccine.

We got it, shots went in arms.

We thought we would be beyond having a spike in COVID cases.

Did you guys see this coming?

Ball start with you.

No, I don't think we saw this coming.

We really expected people to get vaccinated.

For this to be at least eliminated and have 75% of the population vaccinated.

So no, we did not see this coming the way it's increased so much this exponentially over the last 2-3 weeks has been a challenge to every hospital in the state.

Every hospital is full right now.

We've got 1000 / 1000 COVID-19 hospitalizations, 390 in the intensive care unit.

These are approaching January numbers that we haven't seen since then.

So yes, we're we're working hard to serve the people, but it is a challenge right now since you're talking about hospitals.

I was going to get into that in a few minutes, but let's talk about that right now.

UAMS hitting records.

If you follow the the Chancellor over there on Twitter doctor Cam Patterson, he pretty much tweets out every single day what's happening at his hospital.

75 patients as of Tuesday.

In ICU with COVID complications and then he said zero patients with COVID complications who have been vaccinated therein lies the problem.

We're seeing folks who just refused to get the shot.

Right, and I think he makes a great point there.

We're not having any problems with COVID vaccinations.

Any side effects, side effects?

So there's no reason not to get the vaccine and hospitals are overrun, so we just had four people get the vaccine.

Doctor Rogers, let's talk about Children's Hospital.

On Tuesday, 24 kids in the hospital with COVID.

Seven of those are in ICU, and four of them on a ventilator.

How concerning is that for not just you?

Not just the doctors.

They are, but for the entire state.

Yeah, it's very concerning and it's something that we're not seeing just locally, but we're seeing nationally that kids are getting much sicker this time.

Of course, you know there's a lot of kids under 12 who just can't get vaccinated.

That vaccine has not been available to them, so, but didn't we still have a good number of those patients that have been limited to children who could have gotten vaccinated in a knot?

And it ended up in the hospital?

Of course, we also know that you know, kids are pretty responsible for the spread of viruses in general, so you know getting those kids who are eligible for the vaccine.

Vaccinated may protect them from getting hospitalized and from getting really sick and permitting up on ventilator and just to put this in perspective, half of the kids as of Tuesday, half of the 24 who ended up with COVID were eligible to get the vaccine, meaning they were over 12 years old.

There was a 50.

This is a 50% increase over previous pandemic peaks.

At Children's Hospital, so I can't help but imagine we have.

First of all, have you diagnosed any children with COVID and what are their symptoms typically?

Yeah, so typically the symptoms or COVID or just like an adult.

It's sort of a cold with virus of course that sent loss of sense of taste and smell is a very sensitive to the COVID diagnosis we are seeing.

Sort of an increase in dog people testing positive for COVID I think the other thing to think about in Pediatrics and one of the big concerns is we're also seeing a big peak in RSP, which is a very common respiratory virus, so we don't usually see this time of year, but very young children end up sick and then end up in the hospital.

There are also needing support things like a panel later and things like that, so this just kind of puts a greater load on the hospital system.

But yeah, you're right, Dana.

Half of those kids who were in the hospital where vaccine eligible and what I've heard from a lot of those parents is that they regret not getting their kids vaccinated.

Is the Delta variant really affecting young kids more so than just the regular strain of COVID?

If I can refer to it as such.

Yeah, it appears that this strain of the COVID virus is much more aggressive that people get much sicker and I get sicker, faster.

And again seeing in younger populations.

And, you know, the last round with kovid it was mostly senior populations who got sick, but of course we saw a really good uptick in vaccination rates among our seniors.

But we still have a lot of 20 thirty 40 year olds who have not gotten vaccinated and are getting sicker at this time.

And that's really a large number of the people that they're also singing the adult hospitals.

So that's the real key.

Uh, to preventing hospitalization and ventilation is getting vaccinated Bo.

The CDC always said unvaccinated people should wear a mask, but now they've come out with guidance saying that if you've been vaccinated you should also wear a mask and I think you know the the first thing that came to mind is, well, people who are vaccinated or spreading the virus or could get the virus.

Can you explain specifically why the CDC wants?

Vaccinated people to wear a mask and we're talking about indoors, of course.

Right, so I think they're looking to do.

Oh I'm sorry babe, go ahead.

I think they're looking to do anything to stop the spread.

I think when you when you saw their guidance that was issued, it was issued for states where we have high COVID numbers like Arkansas, so they're doing anything whatsoever to stop the spread in in when you go to the grocery store when you're in large crowds, they're recommending social distancing.

Again, we need to have every tool that we can have to stop the spread right now, because this delta variant infects more people quickly and makes them sicker.

So we need to do anything.

We can't stop the spread so people who've had the vaccine.

How does the Delta variant affect them?

If we're talking, we have been talking about breakthrough cases, so is is that the Delta variant that's causing the breakthrough, or is it just COVID?

I think we could say a little of both, but since the delta variant is is much more seen in Arkansas at this point in the in the patients and and responsible for the spread, it is responsible for the breakthroughs.

And even though we do have breakthrough cases, those cases are not as sick as other cases.

So another reason to get the COVID vaccine.

Getting back to the hospital situation, you have to imagine that you know most of these medical professionals are just exhausted.

Having dealt with COVID now for so long, you know many people thought we'd be beyond this by now.

They are absolutely exhausted.

You know what?

I'm sorry I. I guess I should actually point my questions to you guys 'cause you both have a wealth of knowledge on this.

So Doctor Rogers, why don't you go ahead and address that one?

I think that Mr. Riley could speak to this as well.

Yeah, from my colleagues I'm just hearing extreme exhaustion.

This has been going on for over a year and it's one thing to take care of really critically care at critically.

I'll patients, but a lot of death.

And then there's a lot of just speculation by the community that this is all sort of made up, and these colleagues are working this day in, day out.

My stepdaughter is a critical care nurse in North Little Rock has done nothing since she graduated from nursing school.

But take care of COVID patients.

And to miss work six days in a row, and she's just exhausted.

And she's, you know, fresh in the game.

And so you have some.

Also some very seasoned healthcare professionals out there who are just wearing thin and really making please to the community to please get vaccinated.

They don't want to have to put in the critical care.

They don't have to interbeat you or put you on further life support.

So they're they're really fatigued and well, what are you hearing?

Since you're with the with the Hospital Association, I'm sure.

You're getting a lot of feedback from staff all around the state.

All around the state, Doctor Rogers is correct.

The fatigue out there, the frustration.

I think it's all boiling over working extra shifts.

The frustration is that this is preventable.

This is preventable if people would get vaccinated.

We wouldn't see the hospitalizations we're seeing now, so that leads to a lot of frustration, and people are just really.

Tired they have worked so hard.

Baxter regional.

They're at a critical condition with their ICU full with COVID and non COVID patients.

Jefferson Regional Medical Center just recently had all of its medical staff go back to wearing the N 95 masks.

What are hospitals doing?

I mean did certainly they eased some of the restrictions that they had allowing patients to have more visitors.

But are they going back to one visitor or no visitors?

At all.

They're revisiting those visitation policies because of the number of COVID patients, so they want to stop the spread as well.

So some have already adjusted down to one visitor per day, and others will make that adjustment as well.

We have got to stop the spread, and that's one of the things that we can use to stop the spread to people coming into the hospital.

Arkansas Children's Hospital just recently.

Made a mandate that pretty much all of their staff would have to be vaccinated.

Do you think that's going to happen with other hospitals?

I think we're seeing other hospitals.

Mercy Health System came out first.

Washington Regional Health system came out next and Arkansas Children's Hospital.

I can tell you that every hospital is talking about mandatory health care, vaccinations or looking at it trying to decide if they can do it.

But when you look at the smaller rural hospitals, if they lost one health care worker, it hasn't a significant impact.

So I think it's **** ** those hospitals to make a mandatory vaccination because they just cannot lose the staff.

At this point.

We are so full.

OK, so that's a catch 22 because you know then the opportunity still exists for that virus to continue to spread.

Is there no way to get around that?

Well, they're taking the precautions.

Hospitals work with infectious diseases every day, so they're masking wearing N 95 masks and taking precautions.

So they're doing those things already, and they have for years and and you know, Bo, there was a point in time where people refused to go see the doctor because they were fearful of getting the virus.

Do you think we're going to go back to that, or do you think there's a comfort level among many people, especially those who have had the vaccine?

Well, we possibly could, but what we're seeing right now, not only the COVID patients we're seeing all kinds of patients come into the hospital because we've had the continual pent up demand of people putting off procedures, putting off, going to the doctor or the hospital, and so that's one of the reasons we are full is because not only COVID patients, but all kinds of other patients we can't.

We can't stop heart attacks, strokes, and car wrecks.

Those things are continuing to happen.

Doctor Rogers School kids are going back to school the the Arkansas Department of Education released guidelines on Tuesday, which basically sums up how schools are supposed to function.

But do you think it's necessary to have that mask mandate, which obviously they cannot do.

They can only suggest it.

Right, you know.

I think you know there's a kind of this large Bush store is kind of personal choice for masking.

I think what we do know and a year and a half into this almost two years is that masking is a very effective tool to prevent the spread.

The American kind of impedes came out before the CDC and said that they recommend masking for schools.

I'm recommending masks for all of my students.

Are the patients that are going back to school and this whole issue of going back to school is really important.

I mean, last year a lot of kids lost a lot of ground.

And it had a lot of difficulty doing virtual and allow these kids should be back in school and we know how they can return safely and that's number one if they get it, they are eligible to get vaccinated that they get vaccinated and that they wear masks even if they've been vaccinated.

We know that those are two effective tools to keep our kids safe and get them back into school and get them.

You know what they need in order to further their education.

We have about 30 seconds Bo.

Any final thoughts?

I think just continuing to urge people to get vaccinated.

We need the help.

Hospitals are full and we don't want to see.

Anybody have to go into ICU and have a ventilator.

So alternative is to get vaccinated.

The alternative to get vaccinated.

Well Doctor Chad Rogers and Bo Ryall.

Thank you so much for joining me on this segment and.

I want to thank you for joining us as well.

I'm Donna terelle.

I'm sitting in for Steve Barnes.

It's been wonderful.

Thank you so much.

See you again next week.

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

The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.