Arkansas' count of coronavirus cases rose Wednesday by 556, the biggest one-day increase in more than two months.
The state also posted its largest daily increase in covid-19 deaths in more than a month. The death toll reported by the Arkansas Department of Health rose Wednesday by 10, to 11,461.
Wednesday's increase in cases was larger by 115 than the increase on Tuesday, and it was larger by 94 than the one the previous Wednesday. It was the first daily increase to top 500 since March 22, a time when the state's new cases were inflated by a backlog of reports faxed in weeks earlier during a surge of infections from the omicron variant.
The average daily increase in the state's case count over a rolling seven-day period rose to 320. The average was already at its highest level since the week ending March 27.
With new cases outnumbering recoveries, the number of covid cases in the state that were considered active rose by 283, to 3,536. It was the largest total since March 4, and the biggest one-day jump in the total number of active covid cases since the omicron surge in January.
The number of people hospitalized in the state with covid-19, however, fell by seven, to 65, its second straight daily decline.
The number of the state's virus patients who were on ventilators remained for a second day at three, the smallest number since at least March 25, 2020. The state's first case of covid-19 was reported on March 11, 2020.
The number of covid-19 patients who were in intensive care fell Wednesday by six, to nine. That's a new low for this year, and the smallest number of patients in intensive care since at least May 2020.
In the more than two years since the pandemic reached Arkansas, the Health Department has reported 841,675 cases of the coronavirus in the state. Of those, 826,446 are considered recovered.
More details in Thursday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.