Garland County saw the number of reported new cases of COVID-19 level off last week following recent spikes that came with the start of school, and County Health Officer Dr. Gene Shelby said Thursday he hopes this latest plateau gives at least a glimpse of steadier times to come.
Nearly two and a half years after the World Health Organization declared a COVID-19 pandemic, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that a shift from a pandemic to an endemic is starting to come into view. Though an endemic means that the disease is still around, it would be at such a level to not cause the disruption it once did.
According to a news release from the city of Hot Springs, Shelby reported 148 new cases last week, down from 184 the week before, for a total of 302 active cases as of Monday morning. The previous two weeks saw a reported 278 and 232, respectively, total active cases, while the death toll increased by two to 527.
The lower numbers come as the new bivalent vaccine is now readily available throughout the county. While exact numbers were unavailable, Garland County pharmacist and vaccine coordinator Dr. Cody Turner said Thursday that many people from all age groups have taken advantage of the new booster.
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Along with its availability at pharmacies, clinics and doctors' offices, the Garland County Health Department began administering doses of the Pfizer booster on Tuesday, which is available for individuals age 12 and older. It still offers the primary vaccination series from Moderna, Novavax, and Pfizer-BioNTech as well. Both primary and booster doses of the vaccine are available at no charge on a walk-in basis.
"After last week, we've seen the spike and the number of active cases and new positive cases, so I was concerned with back to school and everything that we might be on an upward trajectory," said Shelby in a telephone interview Thursday.
"But I was pleased with the report that I had made to the task force on Monday that there does seem to be a leveling. We still had a slight increase in the number of active cases. We were up to 302 active cases but our number of new positive cases has actually dropped down a little bit. And so hopefully we're not going to see a big spike. And I think that's kind of the consensus that we're seeing in other places, that we're definitely going to have COVID and people are going to get sick from COVID, but at not anywhere near the numbers that we've seen in the past."
He noted that even those individuals who have had only one booster shot are still eligible for the new bivalent booster.
"Really the only thing: you need to wait at least two months from your previous shot. Whether it's your primary vaccinations or whether you've gotten one or two boosters ... You shouldn't have it within two months of your last shot, whatever that last shot was," he said.
Generally speaking, he said, though it can sometimes take a while, individuals who lost their sense of taste and smell when sick with COVID will regain their sense of taste and smell. In cases of long COVID, it can sometimes take longer.
"I've heard cases of people that they don't get it back for two, three, four months," he said. "Which, is really disturbing. There's been a lot of information coming out and it's being studied more (regarding) the long COVID and I think that that's still happening in some people. I don't think it's a real high percentage, but there are people that are going to be disabled for the rest of their life due to various symptoms of long COVID. So it's still out there and it's a low possibility -- not a higher percentage thing -- but for people that do develop the long COVID it can be a life-changing experience."
He said there are still a number of people hospitalized with the disease.
"From the reports, there might have been one in the ICU, but people were still getting sick enough to need to be in the hospital. So that's still a concern. Nobody wants to be in the hospital for anything, including COVID. But yeah, I mean, there were some positive reports coming out of the WHO that we may be heading towards an endemic case with COVID, and not have one of these severe spikes that's we've had in the past," he said.