By Steve Brawner
© 2021 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.
In early December, I quoted British Prime Minister Winston Churchill saying after a World War II victory in 1942, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
That’s how things felt in early December regarding the pandemic. Now, it feels like this might be the beginning of the pandemic’s end.
On Wednesday, Gov. Asa Hutchinson released the latest COVID numbers: 803 new cases, 10 more deaths, 496 total hospitalized.
Those would be jaw-dropping numbers if they had occurred a year ago, but they’re a huge improvement over what we’ve experienced in the recent past. On Dec. 29, the state reported that the cumulative death toll had increased by 66 that day. The new year began Jan. 1 with 4,304 new cases and 1,185 people hospitalized.
So we’re still at war, but the tide is turning.
The improvement can be attributed to several factors. Those horrible numbers from December and January occurred at the pandemic’s peak and were worsened by indoor holiday family gatherings that spread the disease. The smaller new caseloads we’ve seen recently were influenced by the week Arkansans spent snowed inside their homes where they couldn’t get tested.
Even with those explanations, deaths are way down and hospitalizations are half what they were. That’s good news.
And there’s more reason for optimism looking ahead. More than 550,000 doses of very effective vaccines have been administered in Arkansas. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 12.6% of the state’s population, and 16.3% of the over-18 population, has received at least one dose. Another 5.7%, or 7.5% of the over-18 population, has received two doses.
Significantly, 42% of the state’s 70-and-older population has received at least one dose, said Dr. Jose Romero, the state’s secretary of health. That’s the group that’s most vulnerable to COVID. According to the Department of Health, 81.6% of the 5,387 deaths attributed to the virus were age 65 and over. Gov. Asa Hutchinson this week announced that 115,000 Arkansans ages 65-69 are now eligible to receive the vaccine.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health reported Wednesday that more than 317,000 Arkansans have had the disease, with 307,000 of them recovered and 4,676 cases active. The rest died.
We’re clearly nowhere near “herd immunity” where the pandemic fades away because the virus runs out of hosts to infect.
But we are moving in the right direction with 12.6% of Arkansas’ population having had at least one vaccine dose, which research has shown offers strong protection from the disease. Another 10% of the population has already had the disease and should have some or even complete immunity. A substantial percentage of the population has had the disease but never was tested. And there are theories that some people already have some immunity because of previous exposures to other coronaviruses.
The danger of looking at the bright side – and the reason the experts are reluctant to do so – is that people might let their guard down and get infected. That’s understandable. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We don’t want to be like the police officer in the movies who’s one week from retirement but still works that last case. He’s always a goner.
But doom and gloom will not get us through the pandemic, either. We have very effective vaccines, immunity numbers that grow by the day, and the blessed appearance of warmer weather.
No one can know where we are on the pandemic’s timeline, just like Churchill did not know in 1942 that the war would end in 1945. And it won’t be obvious when the pandemic is over. The virus will not sign surrender documents. I suppose COVID will always be with us, just like the flu is.
Still, this is a hopeful time. We’’re not at the end, but we may be at the end’s beginning.