The number of coronavirus cases statewide has risen by 240 to 7,253, according to daily figures posted Sunday afternoon by the Arkansas Department of Health.
It was the fourth-straight day that new cases surpassed 235. No new deaths were reported.
"I don't think we have peaked yet, although we may plateau," said Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, the state epidemiologist.
Increased testing has led to a rise in the number of confirmed cases, she added.
Across Arkansas, there were 115 people hospitalized with covid-19 and 27 on ventilators. Since the first case was diagnosed in the state, 711 people have been hospitalized and 123 have been placed on ventilators.
The number of active cases was listed at 1,845, up from 1,714. The number listed as recovered climbed to 5,275, up from 5,166.
Of the 133 deaths, 55 have been linked to nursing homes, according to the Health Department. To protect this vulnerable population, access by outsiders has been restricted.
The state plans to test every nursing home resident and employee this month.
"We want to make sure no infection is present, and then we want to be able to begin to open nursing homes because it's been such a hardship for people not to be able to visit their loved ones," Dillaha said.
Arkansas is one of 15 states where the number of new covid-19 cases appears to be increasing, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The state, which reported its 3,000th case on April 27, saw its cases more than double in May.
Official figures topped 4,000 on May 10; 5,000 on May 20; 6,000 on May 25; and 7,000 on Saturday.
"We're continuing to see community spread," Dillaha said. "We continue to strongly encourage people to use physical distancing and cloth face coverings and good hand hygiene and to stay home whenever they can."
She also is encouraging Arkansans to "avoid crowds."
"That's when things spread, when people are around other people, especially if ... other people aren't wearing cloth face coverings."
Early on, prison facilities were vectors for the spread of covid-19 in Arkansas.
Eleven deaths were "related to correctional facilities," according to the Health Department data.
The highest per capita rates for covid-19 have been in Lincoln County, home of Arkansas correctional facilities, and in St. Francis County, where federal inmates are housed.
Aggressive testing has helped contain the outbreaks in those counties.
Of the 240 new cases reported Sunday, only one was linked to a prison facility, Dillaha said.
[Interactive Arkansas map not showing up above? Click here to see it: arkansasonline.com/arvirus]
Arkansas has begun easing its covid-19 restrictions in recent weeks.
Beginning today, some restrictions on community and school-sponsored team sports are being eased.
Efforts are also underway to revive an economy that suffered greatly because of covid-19 restrictions.
"In Arkansas, we're back to work," Gov. Asa Hutchinson told President Donald Trump during a May 20 meeting at the White House.
"Today, all of our retail stores are open, all of our retail establishments totally are open. Our gyms are open. Our barbers are open. Our restaurants are open. Now, sure, they have some restrictions, one-third occupancy and things like that, and we're emphasizing the social distancing. But we're at work," the Republican governor said.
The per capita infection rate in Arkansas has been lower than the national rate, and the survival rate has been higher than the national average.
While the official death toll, to date, is 133 people, the state is projected to have 608 covid-19 deaths by Aug. 4, according to a model posted Friday by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
Earlier in May, the institute had predicted Arkansas would have 116 deaths by Aug. 4.
In a written statement, Hutchinson noted that the projections have fluctuated.
"Arkansas currently has one of the lowest per capita death rates in the nation. The University of Washington projections raise the death numbers fairly dramatically in most states and the model for Arkansas is constantly being adjusted," Hutchinson said. "The University of Washington is one of many models that we review and we simply have to work hard to reduce the virus spread in Arkansas to avoid those type of dramatic numbers. Of course, it was the University of Washington models that had us considering War Memorial Stadium for extra hospital space and that proved to be unnecessary."
Dillaha said the projections have varied wildly in recent months.
"Overall, the forecasts haven't been that helpful," she said. "Initially, forecasts were a lot worse than what actually happened, so it's hard to put a lot of stock into those forecasts right now. It's something to pay attention to and to think about, but we have to make our decisions on the real data."
Lincoln County, with its large corrections population, has reported 982 positive tests.
Pulaski County, the largest of the state's 75 counties, has had 888 confirmed cases.
St. Francis County has had 672 positive tests. Jefferson County (521 cases), Benton County (578 cases) and Washington County (509) have also had large numbers test positive.
So far, 26% of the Arkansas cases have been in correctional facilities, while 4.7% have been in nursing homes. Health care workers account for 8.9% of the cases.
Calhoun County, population 5,189, remains the only Arkansas county with no confirmed cases. Seventy-three tests have come back negative.
Testing for the virus continues to rise, with 129,515 results tallied by Sunday. Of those, 122,262 were negative.
Of those testing positive, 58% are male.
As elsewhere, covid-19 is proving particularly devastating to older populations. No one in Arkansas age 24 or younger has died after contracting the virus. Seventy-four percent of those who died were 65 or older; 23% were 45-64; and 4% were 25-44, according to the Health Department website. (Numbers may not equal 100% because of rounding.)
Those falling ill in Arkansas are disproportionately non-white. While whites make up 79.1% of the state's population, they account for 52% of the state's covid-19 cases. Thirty-five percent of those testing positive for covid-19 are black; the state's population, overall, is 15.7% black. Asians, who make up 1.7% of the population, account for 1% of those testing positive.
Pacific Islanders represent 4% of those testing positive, state data shows. (Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders make up 0.4% of the state's population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.) The racial makeup of 7% of those testing positive in Arkansas has been classified as "other."
A Section on 06/01/2020