In the News

Congressman French Hill made a stop at the White County Health Unit this week to thank workers for educating families about the importance of the COVID-19 vaccines and helping them stay healthy.

The Republican U.S. representative for the 2nd District of Arkansas said Wednesday he was hearing from his constituents about the shortage of monoclonal antibodies to treat the virus. All but one of the monoclonal antibodies, Somotrivab, have proven ineffective against the omicron variant, according to health officials, and the Federal Drug Administration has revoked emergency use of a couple of antibodies.

“What we are seeing in the research is it is not helping in this omicron variant, but a lot of people are calling our office saying they want it, they should have it, so the hospitals are short of that,” Hill said, “but one reason they are not being prescribed is that’s it’s not as effective on the omicron.

“But we do need to make sure we have adequate treatments here, and that is something Gov. [Asa] Hutchinson has had as a premium and he’s working through the state to do that.”

Asked what he is hearing about the availability COVID-19 test kits, Hill said “they are being sent to the states and I think the states are doing contracts with the pharmacies.”

White County Health Unit Administrator Matt Morrison told The Daily Citizen that the health unit “got our fair share, a certain allotment of the test kits. That’s been a very, very good allotment that we received for the county with an excellent response. We have been averaging probably a thousand a day giving out the kits.”

French joined in with Morrison, saying concerning the tests being made available, “this is key because if you are fully vaccinated, you can receive and spread particularly this omicron variant, so the whole process in the workplace I think is testing and regular testing. So these kits for families that don’t have any other way to get a kit are very important in case they are feeling symptomatic, get a test and that will keep them out of their workplace potentially sooner than they might otherwise.”

Hill had started his day in Faulkner County, talking to the Greenbrier Chamber of Commerce about workforce issues, getting back to work, inflation and the impact of the supply chain.

Hill said he was in Cleburne County the previous day “because Cleburne is a potential future county in the 2nd Congressional District [due to redistricting], so I stopped in Heber Springs.”

“We talked to businesses, the chamber, county judges, both in White County, Van Buren County and Cleburne County,” he said. “We talked about issues at the county level.”