Arkansans will once again be able to stay overnight in recreational vehicles or cabins at state parks and eat at park restaurants under the first phase of a loosening of restrictions that were imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Tuesday.
The announcement came as six more deaths from the virus were reported, the state's highest one-day total, bringing Arkansas' death toll to 57.
The state Department of Health reported that the number of deceased residents at a White Hall nursing home jumped from one to five. The state's total number of virus-related nursing home deaths increased to 19.
The state's official tally of cases, meanwhile, increased by 58, to 3,127, from Monday evening to Tuesday evening. The numbers are updated several times a day.
That count still does not include all of the results from an outbreak at the Cummins Unit in Lincoln County.
Inmate cases from the prison are added to the state's official count over several days as information from laboratory reports are entered into a state database.
Of the 94 cases that were added to the total from Monday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon, 20 were from the prison, Department of Health Secretary Nate Smith said. The other 74 new cases were up from 60 new non-inmate cases that were reported a day earlier.
Smith said Tuesday that four more inmates and one staff member at the prison had tested positive since a day earlier, bringing the total number of cases among inmates to 860 and among the staff to 51.
A state website still listed just 755 cases in Lincoln County on Tuesday evening, reflecting the lag in adding the prison cases to the state's total.
"I'm still concerned, as Dr. Smith is, about the cases in Arkansas going up, so we're watching that very carefully," Hutchinson said at his daily news conference on the pandemic.
He said he's monitoring cases to see whether they are "in a confined environment like a prison facility" or stemming from an outbreak in the wider community.
"What we want to watch is even though cases might increase because we do more testing, is it reflecting individual cases that we're managing or is it indicative of a community spread?" he said.
PARK FACILITIES
Under the reopening plan for parks, Arkansans will be allowed to camp at the parks overnight in self-contained recreational vehicles starting Friday.
On May 15, the parks will reopen restaurants, museums and exhibits, visitor centers, gift shops, golf pro shops and marinas "with limited capacity and with social distancing enforced," according to a summary of the plan.
Starting the same day, Arkansans also will be allowed to stay in cabins and lodges and to rent RVs. Reservations will be limited to weekends, from Friday until Monday, to allow time for cleaning between stays.
Overnight camping in recreational vehicles, cabins or lodges will be allowed for Arkansas residents only.
Other types of camping will still be prohibited, and bathhouses will remain closed. Popular trails that were closed earlier this month because of their high visitor traffic will also remain off-limits.
"Park staff are instructed to maintain a safe social distance between themselves and visitors and also to encourage our visitors to maintain a safe social distance," Parks, Heritage and Tourism Secretary Stacy Hurst said.
She said the department will follow Health Department and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to minimize the risk of spreading the virus in the park restaurants.
Hutchinson has said he will announce today what type of dining might be allowed at restaurants when the state begins to relax some restrictions on businesses on Monday.
He said the parks announcement on Tuesday shouldn't be seen as an indication of what he will announce about restaurants today.
"We're still working on exactly what kind of requirements should be in place for restaurants," he said. "We're talking with the hospitality industry and getting feedback."
Restaurants throughout the state have been limited to takeout, drive-thru and delivery service since March 20.
The Republican governor also cautioned that campers at state parks will still need to take precautions such as keeping their distance from other people and wearing masks when a safe distance is not possible.
"I remember before we actually closed some of our state parks that we really had some issues on some weekends that there was too much congregation, there were too many people in close contact with each other," he said. "It really makes it awkward for our park rangers to have to strictly enforce it, which they will."
IMPROVEMENT SEEN
Hutchinson said Monday that the state appeared to be on track to meet White House criteria to begin the first phase of an easing of restrictions on businesses next week.
That includes a downward trajectory of positive tests or percentage of results that are positive over a two-week period.
Smith said Tuesday that he sees encouraging trends, including that covid-19 hospitalizations, which fell by five on Tuesday, to 104, have plateaued, and the state's death rate from the virus is low compared with other states.
The 52 deaths that had been reported in Arkansas as of Tuesday afternoon translated to a rate of 0.17 per 10,000 residents.
According to data from the Covid Tracking Project, which collects information from state health departments, Utah, Montana, South Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming and Hawaii were the only states with a lower number of deaths compared with their populations.
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Smith said his department is studying Arkansas' new cases to possibly make adjustments in its protocols for tracking down and testing people who had contact with someone known to have had the virus.
"A specific question we're going to be answering is, how many of these were already a PUI, a person under investigation?" he said. "Were they people we already knew were exposed, or are they people we didn't know were exposed? And if we didn't know about them, why didn't we know about them?"
Hutchinson said Tuesday that testing by commercial laboratories is continuing to increase, and that Arkansas should have 2% of its population tested this month.
As of Tuesday evening, a total of about 43,000 Arkansans had been tested for covid-19, amounting to 1.4% of the state's population.
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On Monday, the White House unveiled a plan it said would allow states to test at least 2.6% of their populations each month. In Arkansas, that would be more than 78,000 people.
"I've received confidence and assurances from the White House that they're going to supply what we need in terms of testing equipment to meet that 2% threshold in May and continue that through June," Hutchinson said.
RECENT DEATHS
A state website indicated that four Arkansans who died recently were from Jefferson County and one was from Pulaski County. Poinsett County also had its first reported death from the virus.
The latest deaths brought the death toll from the virus to 13 in Jefferson County and 16 in Pulaski County.
Meanwhile, Health Department reports indicated that the department's count of deaths from the virus at The Waters of White Hall nursing home had increased since Monday from one to five.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported last week, based on information from Jefferson County coroner's office reports and other sources, that one resident at the home who tested positive for the virus died last week, and another died earlier this month.
Including residents who later died, the total number of nursing home or assisted living facility residents who had tested positive at 28 facilities around the state increased by 12, to 230.
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At the federal prison in Forrest City, the number of cases among inmates increased by eight, to 87, and among staff members by two, to 13.
A Health Department report also indicates that 33 employees of the state prison system's private health care provider, Wellpath, have also tested positive.
Among all the state's hospitalized patients, 20 were on ventilators as of Tuesday, five fewer than a day earlier.
Information for this article was contributed by Eric Besson of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Section on 04/29/2020