Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison said the Hot Springs Convention Center was contacted by the Arkansas National Guard to possibly serve as one of the statewide facilities offering hospital beds Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced on Friday to prepare for the "worst-case scenario" of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The National Guard will be looking at our facility sometime next week to determine if it should be a temporary place for hospital beds; I think they're looking at various other facilities around the state," Arrison said. "So, if that's the case we'll be ready to do whatever we have to do to get Hot Springs and Arkansas through this crisis."
During his daily news conference, Hutchinson said that as of Friday there were 381 COVID-19 cases in Arkansas, and showed a graph modeling a possibility of 2,000 cases being in the state by the first week of April, and 3,500 by the second week of April.
"It doesn't mean that's what's going to happen in Arkansas, but those are the kind of projections that we're trying to anticipate, and we're sharing that story with you," he said. "Now, that's not hospitalizations, but if you look at even a 20% hospitalization rate and you have 3,500 in two weeks, that's 700 cases that are hospitalized in our state."
Hutchinson noted the projected peak of the pandemic could be between April 25 and June 1, meaning the number of cases and hospitalizations will continue to trend upward until then.
"We want to prepare for the worst-case scenario, and that is why today I have authorized 10 additional National Guard personnel to assist the Arkansas Department of Health and Corps of Engineers in expanding our capacity of hospital beds in Arkansas," Hutchinson said.
"That is what is needed to plan for the future. We want to get ahead of the curve and to make sure we don't have to make difficult choices down the road. They'll be providing engineering and architectural experience and their expertise, working with Corps of Engineers and the (ADH) to expand and to plan for hospital bed expansion here in Arkansas."
The convention center has been closed to the public since March 17, sending all staff home on a paid leave until April 1, but Arrison said he will now make the decision on Monday morning if April 1 will remain as the staff return date.
"The convention center won't reopen to the public until the rule that's out there 'More than 10 people can't be in the same (place),' so we'll just reopen when we're told that we can reopen," he said. "Right now it doesn't really matter because all of our business is canceled, so it's kind of a moot point."
Arrison noted many convention center events have been rescheduled for June, in hopes the pandemic has subsided and the directive of no gatherings of 10 or more people has been lifted.
"Hopefully those events will go off as planned, but we're just like everybody else; we're watching it, trying to figure out when it's going to end or when it's going to slack off, and I just finished watching the governor's press conference, and it doesn't sound like it's going to be any time soon," he said.
Local on 03/28/2020