WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — "We are in a desperate situation here in the Arkansas Delta," Dr. Lawrence Brown, a Wisconsin doctor and former Crittenden County, Arkansas, NAACP member said Tuesday.
As new COVID-19 cases rise in northeast Arkansas, so does the concern in those rural counties.
"Where will people in the Arkansas Delta be able to go when hospitals fill up in Little Rock, when hospitals fill up in Memphis?” Dr. Brown said.
While less populated, the coronavirus is still hitting the Arkansas Delta west of Memphis especially hard. To date, COVID-19 cases impacted a larger percentage of the population in Lee, St. Francis, and Crittenden counties in Arkansas, compared to Shelby County, Tennessee.
"We want to defeat and halt the spread of this disease, not wait for it to overwhelm us," Dr. Brown said.
That's why the Crittenden County NAACP chapter asked Gov. Asa Hutchinson for a temporary COVID-19 field hospital for northeast Arkansas counties, more masks for the region, and additional community health workers.
"We need people to be going out. Outreach is the smartest way to do this," Dr. Brown said.
At his briefing Wednesday afternoon, Local 24 News reporter Brad Broders asked about the NAACP's COVID-19 request.
"We haven't really had that request except from this public request from the NAACP. Many of the patients for routine health care go to Memphis, so they go to Memphis to shop, and obviously Memphis has a great deal of capacity in terms of sophisticated health care and ICU units," Gov. Hutchinson said.