Active cases of covid-19 fell dramatically Monday, when the state Department of Health combined three days of reports because it switched to a new data system.
"Today's report includes the data from this past weekend," Gov. Asa Hutchinson said on social media Monday afternoon. "The steady decline in active cases and lower new cases continue to show us moving in the right direction, but we still have work to do on the vaccination front. Let's all do our part."
Another 8,698 new cases were added Monday, bringing the cumulative total to 776,759.
The number of cases in the state that were considered active has continued falling since Jan. 23, meaning that more people have recovered or died from the disease each day than have been diagnosed with it. The count for Saturday through Monday fell by 11,684, to 63,306.
The state's death toll from the virus since March 2020, as tracked by the Health Department, rose by 12, to 9,628.
The Health Department did not release covid updates for Saturday or Sunday because the department implemented a new reportable disease surveillance system. The department completed the migration of all covid-19 data to the new system over the weekend, said Dr. Mike Cima, the state epidemiologist.
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Other reportable conditions are in the process of migrating to the new system as well.
Cima said the interruption of the covid updates was a one-time issue and that future data migration efforts will not cause the system to be offline for an extended period of time.
"We needed a sustainable, better-functioning system that allows us to take the next step in data modernization," Cima said. "This pandemic has shown us how critical data modernization is, and we have seized on opportunities to move the needle forward to that end. These efforts will allow us to better track disease outbreaks in the future and make reporting disease information to the public more efficient and effective."
TESTING DECLINES
Arkansas has seen declines in testing and in positive results.
There were 20,728 PCR tests and 4,141 antigen tests, for a total of 24,869 tests, reported for the three-day span.
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The positivity rate was 27.9%, Health Department spokeswoman Danyelle McNeill said. Just last week, the average topped 30%.
The number of tests was 7,167 less than during the three-day period a week earlier, from Jan. 22-24, when a total of 32,036 tests were reported.
From Jan. 25 to Monday, 57,197 PCR tests and 18,505 antigen tests were reported -- 18,728 fewer total tests than the 94,430 reported from Jan. 18-24.
The Health Department has distributed 764,809 of the 1.5 million rapid at-home tests that were purchased by the state last month, McNeill said.
As of Monday, there were still 206,299 of the at-home tests at local health units.
The tests were distributed to local health units around the state, as well as to libraries and other community organizations to give out free of charge to state residents.
On Friday, the New York-based Rockefeller Foundation announced a program allowing people in Arkansas and five other states to order free at-home tests through a website, accesscovidtests.org, while supplies last.
Each household can order one iHealth test kit containing five tests, which should arrive one to two weeks after they're ordered, according to the foundation.
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University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences spokeswoman Leslie Taylor said the drive-thru testing numbers are down, with 163 patients getting tested on Sunday at the hospital's Little Rock testing site.
HOSPITALIZATION NUMBERS
There were 1,715 patients hospitalized with the virus as of Monday afternoon, five fewer than on Friday.
The state reached a record high of 1,819 hospitalized covid-19 patients on Wednesday.
Patients on ventilators totaled 250, nine more than on Friday, while the number of those in intensive care units rose to 503 on Monday, after dipping during the weekend from Friday's count of 501.
There were 92 covid-19 patients at UAMS on Monday, with 19 in the intensive care unit and 13 on ventilators, Taylor said.
Of those hospitalized, 25 are fully vaccinated.
Of UAMS' 11,000 employees, 336 were not cleared to work Monday, with 185 who had tested positive for covid-19 -- and 124 of those testing positive are health care workers, Taylor said.
"Mondays are usually busy days, so our hospital capacity is tight, however, staffing is good," Taylor said.
St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro hit a record high Thursday with 128 covid-19 patients, spokesman Mitchell Nail said.
Monday's numbers included 122 covid-19 patients, 26 in the ICU and seven on ventilators.
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"Nine patients passed away from the virus in the past week," Nail said. "I do believe healthcare workers are an optimistic bunch, however. We've seen a tepid trend of declining hospital admissions, indicative of how the Omicron variant has affected other regions. Our hope is that the decline accelerates, which will ultimately result in fewer hospitalizations."
Baptist Health had 347 covid-19 patients in its 11 hospitals around the state. Of those, 102 were in intensive care with 79 on ventilators, spokeswoman Cara Wade said in an email.
"This is an improvement over a week ago when we hit our highest number of COVID-19 inpatients with 368. We are also continuing to see a decline in the demand for COVID-19 testing at our testing sites across the state," Wade said. "In addition, each day we have fewer employees out due to reasons related to COVID-19. In addition, 123 of our approximately 11,000 employees are out. Just a few weeks ago, we had almost 600 staff members out because of COVID-19. We are very hopeful these numbers continue in a positive direction."
VACCINE DOSES
The number of vaccine doses that providers reported having administered rose by 7,444, to 3,881,865.
The number of individuals fully immunized increased by 2,357, to a total of 1,544,804, or 54.3% of Arkansans 5 years old and up. The number of Arkansans partially immunized against the virus fell by 170, to 372,308, or 13.1% of the population 5 years old and up.
As of Monday, 518,320 third vaccine doses had been administered.
COUNTY CASES
Health Department data indicates that Pulaski County had the largest increase in cases reported Monday, with the count rising by 1,025 over Friday.
The next-highest increase was in Benton County, with 943, followed by Washington County, with 738.
COVID IN SCHOOLS
The number of active covid-19 cases among students and employees in Arkansas' public schools continued to drop sharply but still totaled 10,962, according to an Arkansas Department of Education report Monday.
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That is down from the 15,889 active cases that the state agency reported in schools as of Thursday, the 16,806 cases on Jan. 24, and the record-high 20,937 active cases among students and employees on Jan. 21.
The Bentonville School District had the largest number of cases in the Monday report, at 617. That was followed by the Rogers School District with 576 cases and the Pulaski County Special School District with 388 active cases. Cabot had 372 cases and Conway had 328, according to the report.
Springdale, the state's largest school district in terms of student enrollment, had 94 active cases. The Little Rock School District, the state's second-largest system, had 264 active cases.
In all, 208 of the state's 261 public school districts and charter school systems had five or more active cases as reported by the state agency.
There were 361 active cases among students and employees in the state's private elementary and secondary school systems. That is down from 586 cases reported Thursday.
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LAWMAKER TESTS POSITIVE
State Rep. Craig Christiansen, R-Bald Knob, notified House Speaker Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, over the weekend that he tested positive for covid-19, House spokeswoman Cecillea Pond-Mayor said Monday.
Christiansen said in an interview that he attended legislative meetings last week except for Friday's Legislative Council meeting.
He said he felt fine and had no symptoms last week before "it just hit me like a freight train," and he tested positive for covid-19 on Friday night.
Christiansen said he's not sure how he caught covid-19 after he received two vaccine shots and then a booster dose.
He said he is feeling better, but his wife tested positive for covid-19 on Monday.
More than 30 state lawmakers have reported testing positive for covid-19 since the virus arrived in Arkansas in March 2020.
Some state lawmakers who have tested positive for covid-19 have not authorized the public release of their names.
Information for this article was contributed by Cynthia Howell and Michael R. Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.