Gov. Sarah Sanders almost immediately declared that the pandemic was over in Arkansas during her first week in office in January. In the time since, at least 16,708 Arkansans have tested positive for COVID-19, according to data from the state health department.
Sanders’ political stance aside, the Arkansas Department of Health recently created a new COVID-19 dashboard that will be updated every Tuesday. It breaks down cases and death data from 2020. The new site also keeps track of other illnesses like monkeypox, hepatitis and STDs. Some parts are still being set up, ADH Spokesperson Danyelle McNeill said. A flu page will be coming soon.
The new dashboard went online on Monday, and it will replace the department’s previous reporting page.
At-home testing changed the game for the state’s reports on positive COVID-19 cases. Without test results being required to the state, the data was referred to as the “tip of the iceberg.” Hospitalization numbers then became the thing to look toward for infection trends, which were publicly available on the ADH’s previous dashboard.
It’s now been over three years since the virus was deemed a national emergency, and hospitals are no longer required to report daily COVID-19 hospitalization numbers to the ADH. However, the new dashboard will include a cumulative seven-day count of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
“This was a time consuming process for hospitals and not currently justified based on the disease statistics trends,” McNeill said. “ADH continues to receive and monitor overall hospital bed availability as we did prior to the COVID pandemic.”
When asked how the ADH felt about Sanders’ approach to health for COVID, McNeill replied with the following:
“Over time, a pandemic disease transitions to an endemic disease, meaning the disease is still present but has more predictable behavior with less spikes. As the disease has entered the endemic phase, ADH has appropriately returned to normal operations. ADH is also turning our attention to other public health issues.”
Discovered on: 2023-03-23 15:35:45
Source: Arkansas Department of Health makes changes to COVID-19 reporting
