The number of people hospitalized in Arkansas with covid-19 jumped to 529, a new two-month high, on Thursday, even as the state posted a smaller increase in cases than a day earlier and from the previous Thursday.
The state's death toll from the virus, as tracked by the Arkansas Department of Health, rose by 12, to 8,913.
After falling by one a day earlier, the number of virus patients in the state's hospitals jumped by 12, to 529, its highest level since Oct. 13.
The case count rose Thursday by 805. However, that was smaller than the spike of more than 1,000 new cases reported on Wednesday, and it was smaller by 113 cases than the daily increase a week earlier.
The average daily rise over a rolling seven-day period fell to 707, down from 723 per day as of Wednesday but still up from a recent low of 699 as of Tuesday.
Except for Wednesday, the average has fallen every day since hitting a recent high of 838 per day the week ending Dec. 6.
The number of the state's virus patients who were on ventilators fell Thursday for the fourth consecutive day, going from 99 as of Wednesday to 92.
For the third straight day, the number who were in intensive care remained at 200.
The number of intensive care unit beds in the state's hospitals that were unoccupied fell by four, to 44, as a result of an increase in non-covid-19 patients who were in intensive care.
People with covid-19 continued to make up about 18% of all the state's intensive care unit patients.
Meanwhile, the Health Department's tally of vaccine doses that had been administered rose by 11,412, the seventh consecutive daily increase that was smaller than the one a week earlier.
Booster shots made up 42% of the most recent increase.
The count of first doses rose by 3,538, which was smaller by more than 1,200 than the increase in first doses a week earlier.
The average number of total doses administered each day over a rolling seven-day period fell to 9,989, the first time it had been below 10,000 since the week ending Dec. 3.
The average for first doses fell to 2,821.
Both have steadily fallen since hitting three-month highs of more than 12,000 total doses a day and 3,600 first doses a day the week ending Dec. 9.
More details in Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.