Arkansas' count of coronavirus cases rose Friday by 1,011 -- the third-highest one-day increase since the start of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced that he will seek approval to use $20 million in federal relief funds to provide up to two weeks of paid leave for public school teachers and support staff, such as cafeteria workers and bus drivers, who test positive for covid-19 or need to quarantine because of exposure to someone with the virus.
Hutchinson also signed an executive order Friday allowing county clerks to begin preparing absentee ballots for counting up to 15 days before the Nov. 3 general election.
Echoing an opinion voiced in June by Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston, the order also says concern about health risks is a sufficient justification to request an absentee ballot for the reason that the voter will be "unable to vote in person on the day of the election due to illness or physical disability."
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Since Thurston's statement, as well as similar statements by the governor and the chairmen of the state Democratic and Republican parties, requests for absentee ballots "have increased rather dramatically," Hutchinson said.
The executive order will give county clerks more time to prepare the ballots for counting, including opening the outer envelope containing information about the voter.
Clerks still won't be able to open the inner envelope containing the ballot itself and begin tallying votes until 8:30 a.m. on Election Day, however.
"They can prepare the absentee ballots without opening up the envelope, but still getting it prepared so that on Election Day it is quicker to count, and they will be a little bit ahead with the number of absentee ballots that we expect during this campaign and election season," Hutchinson said.
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On Friday, the state's death toll from the virus, as tracked by the Department of Health, rose by six, to 521. It was just the third day since the pandemic started that the statewide case count rose by more than 1,000.
"Obviously, today there's been a spike up, but you look at the overall trend line and it's flat," Hutchinson said. "Now obviously, we want it to go down, but I think whenever it's flat, I think that means it hasn't reached the tipping point that it is out of control."
After falling for two days, the number of patients hospitalized with the virus rose by nine, to 523, just below the peak of 526 patients who were hospitalized Tuesday.
The number of patients who were on ventilators increased by five, to 116.
The state's cumulative case count rose to 48,039.
The number of cases that were considered active increased by 200, to 7,158, as 805 Arkansans were newly classified as having recovered.
Although it has been increasing for several days, the number of active cases remained below its peak of 7,167 on July 20.
Education Secretary Johnny Key said school employees would be able to tap the covid-19 leave before using their normal sick days or leave mandated under the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
"One of the common topics that has come up from teachers over the last few months, to the governor and to us at the [Department of Education] is what happens when we have to quarantine or isolate if we're a close contact or if we're a positive? Are we going to have to use all of our personal leave, and then what happens when we run out of personal leave?" Key said.
The additional leave will be available through the end of this calendar year, when the state's $1.25 billion grant under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act expires.
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Key said the department "tried to estimate high" on the amount of money that will be needed, "because we certainly do not know the level of outbreaks that we could have, but we want to be prepared when and if it does happen."
Hutchinson said he will seek endorsement of his proposal next week from the steering committee that he formed to make recommendations on using the federal funds.
The proposal would then go to state lawmakers for their approval.
SCHOOL CONFUSION
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Key also addressed confusion created by a "clarification memo" issued Wednesday by the Education Department's Division of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The memo said schools must offer on-site instruction each day classes are normally in session, but Key emphasized Friday that it doesn't prevent schools from offering additional options including online classes.
"The expectation is that the campuses are open for those students and those families who do need that instruction, who need those therapies or who need that intensive support that is only available to them on campus," Key said.
"For instance, a district that wants to have some alternative scheduling for some students, they could still offer that for those students for whom that works, but they need to have the campus open for the other students that need that five-day-a-week opportunity," he said.
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The memo caused the Fayetteville and North Little Rock school districts to scrap their plans for splitting students into two groups, attending classes on alternate days two days a week and participating online the other three days.
In a Facebook post Thursday, the Benton School District said it will start its school year on a similar schedule.
Students whose last names start with the letters A-M will attend classes in person Monday and Thursday, and those whose last names start with the letters N-Z will attend Tuesday and Friday.
On Wednesdays, all students will attend classes online, while the district cleans and disinfects the campuses. During the second week, students whose parents need them to be able to attend classes four days a week will be able to do so, although Wednesday will remain an online-only day.
"It is the District's intention to re-evaluate the situation after two weeks to see if there is need to continue with a split grouping, while also giving parents the option of bringing all students to campus, and to determine if the Wednesday off-site virtual experiences will continue," the district said in its post. "That announcement will be made prior to the Labor Day Holiday."
"We have been in contact with Superintendent [Mike] Skelton, because we've had questions about that plan, and he has clarified to us just to say that the first week it's not uncommon for districts to have some type of easing back into the school year," Key said Friday. "We're not -- we don't have a problem with that. That's something that could happen in a noncovid year.
"He did assure us that during the second week, the campuses would be available for any students that needed to be there.
"We would expect that at the end of week two, which would be after Labor Day, that they would proceed with their schedule, and with all campuses being open to those students that needed to be there. That would be the expectation of all of our districts."
Isabella Bradley, communications and technology director for the Benton district, said Friday the district's plans haven't changed, and that it will still evaluate its options after the first two weeks.
FOOTBALL DEBATE
Hutchinson also said Friday that high school football teams will be able to hold contact practices starting today.
Addressing the Jonesboro Kiwanis club via Zoom on Wednesday, Jonesboro School District Superintendent Kim Wilbanks said the governor's office, rather than educators, has been pushing for the return of the sport, according to a report Thursday in the Jonesboro Sun.
"As the reopening has occurred, it has, very much so in our state, been based on economically driven decisions, and the entire facet of sports is driven by economic decisions," the Sun quoted her as saying.
Wilbanks is on the board of the Arkansas Activities Association, which sets rules for high school sports.
Hutchinson said Friday that he had seen Wilbanks' comments.
"I want to assure her that the decisions that are being made being are based upon consultations with our Department of Education, as well as with the Department of Health and CDC guidelines," Hutchinson said.
"They're not economic-driven. They're education-driven, and children-focused, which is the, really, the motto of our Department of Education."
Hutchinson last week announced the creation of an advisory group to help create a plan for sports during the pandemic.
Arkansas Surgeon General Greg Bledsoe, chairman of the group, said it met Monday and Wednesday and decided to recommend allowing contact during practices.
"It was like nine or 10 that felt strongly that tackle should go forward," he said. "There were probably two or three that were kind of in the middle, and then there was one that didn't feel comfortable with it."
Members who supported allowing contact felt it didn't represent a "significant jump in risk" compared to what the players were already allowed to do, he said.
He said the group still hasn't decided whether it will recommend allowing competition to go forward.
"That decision won't be made for another couple weeks, and is being actively discussed right now," he said.
As of Friday, at least 15 schools had shut down varsity workouts in football because of a positive covid-19 case or exposure to the virus.
SENATORS VISIT
Also on Friday, Arkansas' U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican, toured several classrooms at Eastside Elementary School in Cabot as part of an overview to learn how the school district was preparing a return to classroom instruction in a little more than two weeks.
Cotton asked school administrators questions about their plans to phase in the start of the school year over two days starting Aug. 24 and to offer remote learning lessons for students who choose to stay home.
He spoke with one teacher who was preparing to teach at least 37 third- and fourth-graders through digital lessons to keep herself safe from the virus after recovering from blood cancer.
Earlier Friday, Cotton visited the Marion School District in eastern Arkansas. Sen. John Boozman, Arkansas' senior Republican senator, posted on Twitter on Friday that he had visited Northside Elementary School in Rogers.
"We're dealing with this very infectious disease, and many teachers, many students, are going to be making choices to study online or have some kind of blended learning," Cotton said. "These schools are taking great strides to try to accommodate those health needs but also make sure our students get as much of a normal educational experience, with not just the academic element but the social and emotional development as well."
Asked by the senator what is the biggest challenge in reopening schools, Cabot Superintendent Tony Thurman said it was the knowledge that "more than likely, reasonably, we're going to have positive cases pretty fast once school opens."
"How do we handle this, because I understand from a parent point of view the emotions that are going to be involved in that, I understand from a teacher point of view the emotions that are going to be involved in that," Thurman said. "And how do we get through, especially that initial push when we know there's going to be positive covid cases in our schools, and how do we help mitigate that and help our parents understand it's still going to be OK, we're still going to do the best we can, we may have to quarantine a group. Managing that part of this is the most stressful for me."
Speaking to reporters later, Cotton said he was open to invoking the National Defense Authorization Act to increase testing capacity in states such as Arkansas that are preparing to open schools.
Hutchinson, a fellow Republican, has repeatedly called on President Donald Trump's administration to take such a step, though Cotton noted there were concerns about "unintended consequences in the supply chain."
Cotton said he hoped to visit with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to discuss what is being done to accommodate the educational and health needs of students with special needs. Overall, he suggested more funding may be needed to aid schools during the pandemic.
"We provided a lot of money back in March, some of that money is still available, but it may be necessary to provide more money from Washington so our schools can reopen safely," Cotton said.
LATEST CASES
The cases added to Arkansas' total Friday included 182 in Pulaski County, 61 in Jefferson County, 53 in Craighead County, 44 in Mississippi County, 43 in Sebastian County, 41 in Washington County, 40 in Independence County and 32 in Benton County.
Among prison and jail inmates, the state's count of cases rose by 168. Such increases can represent new cases as well as ones that were reported earlier but not immediately classified as coming from a jail or prison.
Cases from prison outbreaks also sometimes don't show up in the state's total until days after the test is conducted, after information from laboratory reports is entered into a state database.
The remaining 843 cases that were added among the state's nonincarcerated population Friday was the state's fourth-highest one-day increase in such cases.
At the Department of Corrections' Wrightsville Complex, 474 inmates had tested positive as of Friday, up from 244 that were listed in a Health Department report a day earlier, Corrections Department spokesman Cindy Murphy said.
She said 154 of the cases were active, including 115 at the Wrightsville Unit and 36 women and three men at the J. Aaron Hawkins Sr. Center.
At the Delta Regional Unit in Dermott, 301 inmates had tested positive, up from 157 listed in a Health Department report. All but one of those cases were active, Murphy said.
Information for this article was contributed by Stephen Simpson and Jeremy Muck of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
