NWA EDITORIAL: Something's burning

"Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire and live with it. The reason? Because he alone has learned to put it out."

-- Henry Jackson Vandyke Jr.,

One of the best experiences of camping, whether here in the Ozarks or in the wilds of the Serengeti, is a peaceful evening sit-down around a well-made campfire. Smoke and flame, it seems, has a way of warding off, even if only temporarily, the complexities and complications of the world.

Perhaps it's just a rugged form of escapism, but there's something to campfire therapy -- watching those embers glow, listening to the crackles as the flames envelop and consume the wood.

Necessarily, though, there exists one serious concern that ought not drift off into the star-filled sky: putting out the fire.

How many times massive forest fires originated with campfires left unattended or inadequately extinguished? One errant spark can grow to a dangerous inferno. Then the firefighter's job is to rob the blaze of what it needs to survive -- namely fuel. If flames consuming a tree can't find a path to another fuel source, such as another tree or nearby vegetation, it will eventually be incapable of spreading.

Arkansas is on fire right now, along with the rest of the world. The flames, however, come in the form of a virus that spreads among humans quite easily. Indeed, the virus has a hunger to spread. Its nature is to leap from one person to the next and, like those flames of a forest fire, it's constantly searching for fuel.

For a year now, many Arkansans have been battling the blaze of covid-19 by denying the virus an easy path toward spreading out of control. They've done it through physically keeping their distance from others, wearing masks and washing hands. In recent months, we've gotten a needed assist in the form of vaccines. Their arrival is like switching from one homeowner with a garden hose fighting a forest fire to a battalion of professional firefighters arriving with trucks and airtankers.

But what if, once those professional firefighters arrived, the homeowner rejected their help and insisted on fighting the inferno with a garden hose? Doesn't make any sense, does it?

Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences are confident -- 100 percent sure, as a matter of fact -- that there's nothing in the physical make-up of Arkansans that make them immune to covid-19. The good news is there's also nothing that makes Arkansans more likely than anyone else to become infected. What it boils down to is how Arkansans respond to the pandemic.

"As we and others have written before, we are in a race with the covid-19 virus," researchers from the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health recently wrote. "Its goal is to infect as many people as possible. Our goal is to prevent it from doing so through vaccinations, and our most valuable weapon is consistent and widespread vaccination. If this virus has taught us anything, it is that letting our guard down has consequences."

In the year since the pandemic began, Arkansans have universally longed for the day when we could put it behind us. The development and arrival of vaccines is the strongest tool in the arsenal to do just that. And yet the state's leaders can't seem to convince some Arkansans of their critical part in the fight against covid-19.

Getting vaccinated is the equivalent of dousing that campfire, refusing to allow it to become the source for the spread of a larger and more dangerous blaze.

Oddly, in some areas of the state, vaccines have been readily available but with shortages of people ready to be injected. Gov. Asa Hutchinson and his health advisers have attempted to keep demand high by quickly expanding eligibility for the vaccines from the most vulnerable to categories that include a massive swath of the state's population.

Hutchinson said last week the state "is running into a little bit of a continued demand problem in the sense that as people in their communities see lower case numbers, they're less motivated to get a vaccination, and we've got to reverse that trend."

In other words, in that race against covid-19, now isn't the time to let off the gas pedal.

Here, perhaps, is the most dangerous possibility: If people have become convinced enough that covid-19's threat is reduced to the point they continue to resist vaccination, there's reason to believe those same people will convince themselves they can go back to their pre-covid behaviors without any substantial threat.

That's a recipe for a new wave of covid-19 infections. And lest anyone believe otherwise, covid-19 is still a dangerous disease, fully capable of killing people or leaving them with unpredictable, lifelong health challenges. It's been amazing how randomly the symptoms behave -- one person hardly gets sick and another requires hospitalization and a ventilator. Some recover quickly. Others have symptoms and complications that last for months and months.

As with the multiple waves of the Spanish flu back in 1918-19, covid-19 and its variants can gain a new foothold if people remain hesitant, or even obstinate, to vaccines. Believing the downward trends in cases relieves one of any need to participate in fighting the virus will add fuel to the pandemic's possible resurgence.

---

As for the governor, when it becomes clear any eligible group's vaccinations is slowed by a resistance to the shots, it's time to expand the eligibility. Nobody who wants the vaccine should be forced to wait for Arkansans still hemming and hawing over whether to get one.

It's also vital that the state rush vaccines to areas of the state where there's a demonstrable demand for receiving them. If there's 1,000 doses in one part of the state and nobody lined up to receive them, why not send those doses to an area of the state where appointments are backed up? Last week, U.S. Rep. Steve Womack urged state officials to increase shipments of vaccines into Northwest Arkansas so that more vaccinations can happen, suggesting a shortage in the region was a barrier to progress against covid-19.

The safety of the Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccines has been clearly demonstrated. Everyone who longs to get back to the days in which covid-19 is not an omnipresent concern needs to step up, roll up their sleeves and accept the easy shot.

Not getting vaccinated is the equivalent of just leaving it to chance that a campfire will burn itself out, a behavior that's far too risky and threatens lasting damage.

Just like back in the days when a barn fire required a bucket brigade with all the townsfolk pitching in, Arkansas' response to covid-19 and the vaccines needs to be just as community oriented.

Let's finish putting out the fire.