Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced Thursday that he was renewing his declaration of a public health emergency in response to the coronavirus pandemic and that he would ask the Legislature to meet as a Committee of the Whole to "support and affirm the current public emergency."
"We are all in this fight together, and it takes all of us, arm in arm united, to defeat the biggest public health crisis in our lifetime," Hutchinson said in a televised prime-time address, his first since taking office in 2015.
Hutchinson spoke as the state's count of coronavirus cases rose by 2,202 -- the first daily increase in more than a week that was smaller than the one a week earlier.
The state's death toll from the virus, as tracked by the Department of Health, rose by 34,to 2,820 Thursday.
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After falling by 17 Wednesday, the number of people hospitalized in the state with covid-19 fell Thursday by 59, to 1,005.
The number of patients who were on ventilators, however, rose by two, to 181.
Hutchinson said renewing the emergency that he first declared in March for an additional 60 days would keep in place measures such as an executive order allowing expanded use of telemedicine and "flexible education" for public schools.
He said the Legislature had been a "good partner" during the pandemic but acknowledged that "some have argued that the Legislature should join in the decision to continue the emergency."
Arkansas Code 12-75-107 allows the Legislature to terminate a state of emergency "at any time" through a concurrent resolution.
During the address, from behind his desk at the state Capitol, Hutchinson once again rejected the idea of placing more restrictions on businesses, saying businesses such as restaurants, hair salons and gyms already must follow strict rules.
"The real solution to getting life back to normal is people being self-disciplined by wearing a mask, socially distancing and limiting our indoor gatherings to those we know are safe," he said.
Hutchinson has said he is considering placing stricter limits on indoor gatherings, however.
Currently, organizers of events with more than 100 people are required to submit a plan to the Department of Health for approval.
Health Secretary Jose Romero has said officials have discussed lowering the threshold so that events with more than 10 people would be required to submit a plan.
Although the governor didn't announce any new restrictions Thursday, Hutchinson said employers may want to forgo holiday parties this year or have a "social distancing get-together" approved by the Health Department, which is what he said his office is doing.
Linking the state's uptick in cases to "everything we did over Thanksgiving, even with the best of intentions," he encouraged Arkansans to "be smart about travel" over the holidays this month.
"Let's travel less, but in some cases it will be necessary," he said.
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He suggested those traveling out of the state consider getting a rapid coronavirus test beforehand and afterward.
"If we fail to follow our public health guidelines over the next two weeks and through the New Year, then our hospital staff will be challenged like never before," he said.
Thursday's increase in cases was smaller than both the 2,327 that were added Wednesday and the 2,789 added the previous Thursday, Dec. 3.
The last time the state's daily increase in cases was smaller than the one a week earlier was the increase of 1,950 cases on Dec. 1.
After rising since then, and setting records for six straight days, the average number of cases added to the state's tallies over a rolling seven-day period fell Thursday by 84, to 2,078.
Hutchinson noted the state's progress in testing for the virus, saying it had gone from not being able to test to an average of more than 10,000 people a day being tested by health care providers.
A total of 1.3 million Arkansans -- or more than 40% of the state's population -- have been tested, he said.
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LAWMAKER, BISHOP INFECTED
Among those who tested positive for covid-19 recently were a state lawmaker and the head of the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock.
House spokeswoman Cecillea Pond-Mayo said Thursday that state Rep. Carlton Wing, R-North Little Rock, had tested positive.
"I'm told he has mild symptoms and [is] recovering from home," she said in a text message to this newspaper.
Wing, 53, said his wife and son have also tested positive.
He said he doesn't know how he was infected with covid-19.
"We have been doing all the masks and all that stuff," Wing said. "It came and got us."
He said his symptoms include fatigue and a cough.
Bishop Anthony Taylor announced his positive test result in a Facebook post Thursday.
A day earlier, he posted that he was in isolation while awaiting the results of a covid-19 test after "experiencing symptoms consistent with COVID-19."
"Since the results of the COVID-19 test I had taken at [the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences] were slow in coming, I decided to go and get the quick test, which, as expected, was positive," Taylor said in the post Thursday.
He said he would be in isolation until at least Dec. 18.
"As it turns out, being over 65 and in a risk group, I qualified for a Monoclonal Antibody Infusion, the same treatment President Trump got, so I will go and get this infusion tomorrow morning," Taylor said in the post.
"It may not shorten my quarantine, but it should help reduce the symptoms.
"Thank you for your prayers and pray also for our seminarians who now all have to be tested too."
During the past 2½ months, 15 state lawmakers have acknowledged testing positive for coronavirus.
Since the pandemic started in March, 19 lawmakers have said they tested positive for covid-19.
There are 100 representatives and 35 senators in the Legislature.
PRISON OUTBREAKS
The cases added to the state's tallies included 1,704 that were confirmed through polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests.
The other 498 were "probable" cases, which include those identified though less-sensitive antigen tests.
The state's cumulative count of cases rose to 178,854.
That comprised 154,073 confirmed cases and 24,781 probable ones.
At a record level since Wednesday, the number of cases that were active rose by 958, to 19,723, as new cases continued to outpace recoveries.
Pulaski County had the largest number of new cases, 232, followed by Washington County with 185, Benton County with 148, Faulkner County with 97 and Craighead County with 88.
Among prison and jail inmates, the Health Department's count of cases rose by 165.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Cindy Murphy said the largest increase was at the Grimes Unit near Newport, where the number of cases among inmates rose by 128, to 599.
The number of inmates who have tested positive rose by 36, to 181 at the Barbara Ester Unit in Pine Bluff; by 14, to 1,443, at the Ouachita River Unit in Malvern; by seven, to 155 at the Omega Supervision Sanction Center in Malvern; and by three, to 18, at the Southwest Arkansas Community Correction Center in Texarkana.
The East Central Arkansas Community Correction Center in West Memphis, the Northeast Arkansas Community Center in Osceola and the Tucker Unit in Jefferson County each had two new cases, while the Benton Unit, the Mississippi County Work Release Center near Luxora, the Pine Bluff Re-Entry Center and the Varner Unit in Lincoln County each had one new case.
Of those prisons, the Grimes Unit had the largest number of cases that were active, 349, followed by the Tucker Unit, which had 57, and the Barbara Ester Unit, which had 41.
The state's death toll rose by seven, to 2,559, among confirmed cases and by 27, to 261, among probable cases.
Among nursing home and assisted living facility residents, the state's count of virus deaths grew by 21, to 1,204.
The number of people who have ever been hospitalized in the state with covid-19 rose by 34, to 9,709.
The number of virus patients who have ever been on a ventilator because of covid-19 grew by three, to 1,071.
Meanwhile, the Health Department reported that 10.9% of the state's PCR tests were positive during the seven-day span that ended Wednesday.
That was down from the 11.2% that was initially reported for the week ending Tuesday.
The percentage for that period later rose to 11.6% as additional test results were reported.
Hutchinson has said he wants to keep the percentage -- a gauge of whether the state's testing is adequate -- below 10%.
The Health Department also reported that the percentage of the state's antigen tests that were positive over seven days rose slightly from 20% as of Tuesday to 20.7% as of Wednesday.
Information for this article was contributed by Michael R. Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
