Photo: Arkansas Health Director, Dr. Jose Romero
Arkansas Health Director Dr. Jose Romero, soon to depart for a CDC job, took questions from a legislative committee Monday on COVID-19, among them what the state could have done differently as it looks back at two years of response to the pandemic, according to a post from Arkansas Times.
“There’s always room for improvement,” Romero said. But he said the state had rolled out testing rapidly, particularly considering how ill-equipped the state lab was in the beginning; had rolled out vaccines quickly, and had provided home testing ahead of the federal home testing program. Treatment programs were also provided “equitably,” he said.
The big problem, he said, was “misinformation and disinformation.” He continued, “We as a state could have done much better in countering that.” He wasn’t specific — but memories of unhinged sessions on masks, vaccines, limits on business and school contacts and quack remedies are fresh enough in the memory of most.
He said “some of the deaths we had were the result of misinformation or gross disinformation. It pains me. It is a pain in my heart to see somebody die of COVID and die young of a preventable disease.”
He said the state had tried to counter disinformation, “but social media is pervasive and has a way of getting in.”
Overall, though, he said the state government did a good job and the governor did a good job. “We had our kids in school. That was not my advice. But the governor made the correct decision. I think weve done good.”
On other topics:
He said a second booster was now recommended, contrary to what he’d said some weeks ago. He said age, underlying health condition and risk of exposure were facts to consider in getting the second booster. Either Moderna or Pfizer is acceptable, he said.
The current variant of COVID now circulating is less serious on an individual basis, he said, but it spreads more easily than the Delta variety and thus can contribute to a hospital burden because serious illness is still possible.
Long COVID remains a concern with many unanswered questions. He said he feared individuals with lingering chronic conditions could become a future health care burden.
Romero’s appearance concluded with the reading of a laudatory letter by Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, co-chair of the Public Health Committee, thanking him for his work and congratulating him on his new job. Rep. Jack Ladyman also presented a similar letter, He was also given an Arkansas flag and two commemorative coins, one marking the legislative session and the other a coming football game between UA and ASU.
It was a warm session, unlike some tense sessions he endured from the legislature earlier. Remember hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin? Rep. Mary Bentley, by the way, a champion of such treatments, brought up the issue of Arkansas’s COVID mortality rate, far higher than a Central American country she’d noted. She said that deserved some study.
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