LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — While we keep a close eye on current COVID-19 cases, hospitals are experiencing some relief from last month's declines.
Some hospitals in the area are even only taking care of two total COVID-19 patients, as of Wednesday.
Meanwhile at UAMS, they were taking care of eight COVID-19 patients, as of Wednesday.
That's a drastic difference from 80 patients during the summer surge, but we've been in the pandemic long enough to know, ups and downs are common.
That's why Dr. Robert Hopkins with UAMS, said this isn't the time to let our guards down.
"We've gone through this series where things seem to calm down, you know, waiting for the next shoe to drop, and I think there is some concern about when or what's going to drive that," he said.
While the future is unknown, especially with COVID-19, Hopkins said the present is looking pretty good inside Arkansas hospitals.
"We're all very pleased that our number of COVID patients has come down over the last couple or three weeks. We've stayed down at fairly low levels," he said.
With eight patients battling the disease and two of them in the ICU, Hopkins said they have some breathing room.
He believes more vaccines and immunity led to this drop.
"In the health care community, we need to continue to have open minded conversations with people to help answer their questions about the vaccine," Hopkins said.
It's a similar story 30-miles away at Conway Regional Medical Center, according to Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Mary Burgess.
"We're ready to take care of more COVID patients, but it is not full of COVID at this moment," she said.
As of Wednesday, the hospital only had 10 COVID-19 patients.
Burgess said it's a nice change compared to the intense summer months.
"We had nearly 50 patients in the hospital and we were running out of ICU beds and needing to create more intensive care unit beds. So, right now it's a very, very normal time for us," she said.
So, how do we keep our hospitals like this? Burgess said the answer is in the shot.
"Anyone out there, who has not been vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine, I would say to please get vaccinated," she said.
While this is something to celebrate, Hopkins wants everyone to remember the pandemic isn't over yet.
"I don't want people to back off too much on their precautions, because we don't want to be back where we were," he said.
Nationally, cases and positivity rates have been rising this month.
Both Burgess and Hopkins said they're staying busy, taking care of everything else that comes into their ER's, like heart attacks and car accidents.
Doctors said this is probably the new normal, having COVID as just one of the many conditions they treat.