Coronavirus in Rural Arkansas

Let me tell you how unprepared we are

Last weekend, a few people who I will not name messaged me about what they felt was an emergency situation at the local hospital, which is in a county-owned hospital building in Clinton, Arkansas, and leased by a nonprofit called Ozark Health. It’s the only hospital for miles, and it employs about 400 people. An employee was working in the ER who lives with a family member who had tested positive for Covid-19. This family member, who also works in health care, had posted publicly about her status, so everyone in two counties knew about it. She had only self-isolated the previous week. So why was her relative at work? The CDC recommends a 14-day quarantine.

I called the hospital administration, who didn’t call me back until I posted on Facebook. He told me that they were following the CDC interim guidelines for health-care workers, which have nothing to do with whether someone is exposed to a positive family member in their home. It was not reassuring. I’ve heard from the same people that there was no hospital-wide memo about work changes or policies in place because of the pandemic. This hospital is woefully unprepared anyway. There are no ICU beds, and only five ventilators, a number I got because one of my sources went around and counted them. This, in a population that is aging and has a high number of smokers.

In all, there’s been a lackadaisical approach to the global pandemic. When the Covid-19 patient I mentioned above posted about her health on her Facebook page, our county judge, Dale James, asked, “How are you today?? Wondering what to expect when it's our turn,” with a sadface emoji, as if the whole point wasn’t to try to keep from getting it. He posts on his own page every day the number of cases in our county, which is also available from the state health department’s website and available to anyone, and for this people praise him for staying on top of things. The case count went down by one overnight one day, and he called the occasion momentous. When someone asked him if it was because we’d had one death, he didn’t know, but still congratulated the county for not having more cases. We don’t have a testing site here, and this makes me wonder whether it’s a lack of testing that’s keeping our case numbers low. This may be a problem throughout the state of Arkansas, which remains one of only four states that has yet to issue a stay-at-home order. The governor, Asa Hutchinson, is worried, he says, about the toll it will take on the economy. Nearly all the evidence we have from around the world shows that, when governments wait too long to stop people from moving around, the price is paid in human bodies. He has said people are staying at home without being ordered to. My eyes and ears beg to differ. I fear we will be slammed next week. The county next to us, Cleburne, is a national hotspot on a per capita rate of infection.

When Samir was leaving work one day recently, he saw a group of people chatting on the sidewalk, and mentioned social distancing guidelines to them. One woman said, “My God is stronger than the coronavirus God,” so there is a lot of denial to go with the lack of policy.

A Note About Format

You may have noticed the newsletter has a new look. I’ve changed my service to Substack, a program that will allow paid subscriptions down the road. I may not go that route yet, but wanted the option. Plus, all the cool kids are using it. As always, you can unsubscribe with the buttons below.

What I am Reading

Nothing much, only The Plague, by Camus. Some people try to distract themselves from trouble, and some of us try to lean into it.

What I am Recommending

Baking. Cooking is my regular creative outlet, besides writing, and is more soothing besides, because there is usually a recipe and instructions to follow. I baked the most perfect loaf of bread in my entire baking life yesterday. Here is the recipe, which requires a subscription or login.

Cute Animal Picture of the Week

I’ve been seeing fewer cute animals because I’ve been confined to the house, but I have plenty of my own. Here are my cats, Eek, Pandora, and Sampson, being color-coordinated.