The numbers of people with covid-19 in Arkansas who were hospitalized, on ventilators and in intensive care all fell Thursday, with the number hospitalized dropping for the 11th day in a row.
The state's count of cases rose by 781, the third daily increase in a row 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 10, to 8,176.
"We cut hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in half since this time last month. A relief for healthcare workers that have worked tirelessly to care for Arkansans who needed help," Gov. Asa Hutchinson said in a tweet.
"We can continue to cut down those numbers by getting vaccinated and encouraging others to do the same."
Despite the smaller number of new cases compared with a week earlier, however, the number of cases in the state that were considered active rose Thursday for second time in less than a week.
A Health Department report released Thursday also showed active cases increasing among public elementary and secondary school students and employees for the first time since early September.
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"We're still hovering around the same number of new cases, and I think we may have kind of reached our plateau," Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, the Health Department's chief medical officer, said.
She pointed to the active-case total, which rose by 118, to 6,820, as new cases outpaced recoveries and deaths.
The total had been declining every day for almost a month until Saturday, when it rose by 166.
It then resumed its decline until Thursday.
Cases are generally considered active for about 10 days after a person tests positive, Dillaha said.
If the state's new cases hit a plateau, the active-case total eventually will too, she said, since the number of people recovering each day will be about the same as the number being infected.
"Seven hundred [new] cases a day is still pretty high," she said.
"We still have thousands of active cases out there, and we still have 500 people in the hospital.
"If we maintain 500 people in the hospital, and then we put flu on top of that in the winter months, it could still put a lot of stress on our health system, and right now the health system is still under stress."
To reduce the virus's spread, she said, "we need more people to be vaccinated, and we need people to continue to do whatever they can to lessen spread of covid-19."
"That means continuing to wear face masks, and that means avoiding situations where they're likely to be exposed, especially if they are at high risk for severe illness," she said.
FEWER HOSPITALIZED
The increase in the state's case count was smaller by 112 than the one the previous Thursday.
As a result, the average daily increase in the count over a rolling seven-day period fell to 645, dropping below the three-month low it reached the week ending Oct. 8.
The number of people hospitalized in the state with covid-19 fell by 26, to 505, its lowest level since July 9.
After rising a day earlier, the number who were on ventilators fell by 10, to 153, its lowest level since July 20.
The number who were in intensive care, which didn't change Wednesday, fell Thursday by 10, to 243.
The number of intensive care unit beds that were unoccupied fell by seven, to 110, primarily because more non-covid-19 patients were in intensive care.
People with covid-19 made up about 22% of all the state's intensive care patients on Thursday, down from 23% a day earlier.
SCHOOL CASES UP
Among students and employees at public elementary and secondary schools, the number of active cases grew by 24, to 1,341, from Monday to Thursday.
It was the first time the total, as tracked in Health Department reports that are released twice a week, rose rather than declined since it reached an all-time high of 4,833 on Sept. 6.
The Springdale School District, the largest among the state's 262 traditional public school districts and charter school systems, continued to have the largest number of active cases, although its total dropped from 56 as of Monday to 49.
The Bentonville School District had the next highest total on Thursday, 48, which was up from 38 on Monday.
Pulaski County Special School District was next on Thursday with 41 active cases, up from 39 on Monday.
The Little Rock School District, the state's second-largest, on Thursday had the 10th-highest number of active cases, 21, which was down from 24 as of Monday.
In all, 88 districts and charter school systems were listed by the Health Department as having at least five active cases among students and employees as of Thursday, down from 89 districts and charter systems as of Monday.
Both the Pulaski County Special and Little Rock school districts have requirements for students and employees to wear masks.
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The Springdale district dropped its mask requirement, which had applied only to students in kindergarten through seventh grade, on Sept. 14.
The Bentonville district lifted its requirement last week in response to an order by Benton County Circuit Judge Xollie Duncan, who found that the district did not have the authority to issue the mandate.
The Bentonville School Board said Tuesday that it is appealing Duncan's ruling.
CENTER'S REPORT
In a weekly report, the Arkansas Center for Health improvement said 22 school districts had 50 or more new cases per 10,000 residents within their boundaries over a two-week span, down from 40 districts a week earlier.
The Scranton School District's 33 cases during the two weeks ending Monday translated to a rate of 128 per 10,000 residents, making the western Arkansas district the only one in the state with 100 or more new cases per 10,000 residents during that time.
A week earlier, no district in the state had 100 or more new cases per 10,000 residents over a 14-day span.
The cases include those among residents of the district, excluding incarcerated people and residents of nursing homes and human development centers.
The Center for Health Improvement also reported that, for the fourth week in a row, the Bentonville, Cleveland County, Magnet Cove, Fountain Lake and Pulaski County Special school districts were the only ones in the state where at least 50% of residents were fully vaccinated.
The rates in those districts ranged from 54% in the Bentonville district to 51% in the Pulaski County Special district.
HIGHER EDUCATION
Colleges and universities had 152 active cases among students and employees as of Thursday, down from 154 as of Monday, according to Health Department reports.
The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville continued to have the highest total, followed by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Arkansas Tech University in Russellville.
At UA, the number of active cases dropped from 39 as of Monday to 35.
UAMS' total rose from 14 as of Monday to 20, while Arkansas Tech's dropped from 13 to nine.
Private elementary and secondary schools were listed Thursday as having 43 active cases among students and employees, up from 29 as of Monday.
STATE RANKINGS
According to rankings on Thursday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Arkansas had the 15th-lowest number of new cases per capita during the seven-day span ending Wednesday, down from the 17th-lowest the week ending Monday.
In new deaths, it went from having the 20th-highest rate to the 19th-highest as its number per 100,000 residents over seven days rose from 3.3 to 3.5.
Within Arkansas, Washington County had the most new cases on Thursday, 82, followed by Benton County, which had 76, and Pulaski County, which had 75.
The state's cumulative count of cases rose to 505,297.
Dillaha said all of the deaths reported Thursday happened within the past month.
She said 7.6% of the state's coronavirus tests were positive during the seven-day span ending Wednesday, down from the 7.9% that was initially reported for the week ending Tuesday.
Hutchinson has said he wants to keep the percentage below 10%.
The number of people who have ever been hospitalized in the state with covid-19 rose by 38, to 27,109.
The number who have ever been on a ventilator rose by five, to 2,836.
VACCINATIONS DOWN
Meanwhile, at 6,369, the increase in vaccine doses that providers reported having administered was smaller by more than 4,100 than the one a week earlier.
Falling for the seventh day in a row, the average number of doses administered each day over a rolling seven-day period dropped to 5,795, the first time it had been below 6,000 since the week ending Sept. 28.
Of the most recently reported doses, 43% were third doses, including booster shots of the Pfizer vaccine for people who received their second dose at least six months ago.
Second doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines made up 29% of the increase. First doses, including the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, accounted for 27%.
Information about the dose number was missing for 19 of the doses.
According to the CDC, the number of Arkansans who had received at least one vaccine dose rose Thursday by 2,105, to 1,705,980, representing about 56.5% of its population.
The number who had been fully vaccinated rose by 2,550, to 1,406,742, or about 46.6% of the population.
Among the states and District of Columbia, Arkansas continued to rank 37th in the percentage of its population who had received at least one vaccine dose.
In the percentage who had been fully vaccinated, it was roughly tied with Tennessee for 43rd, ahead of Louisiana, North Dakota, Mississippi, Alabama, Wyoming, Idaho and West Virginia.
Nationally, 65.6% of people had received at least one dose, and 56.7% were fully vaccinated.
Arkansas was roughly tied with Tennessee for 43rd among the states and District of Columbia in the percentage of its residents who had been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data as of Thursday. An earlier version of this story listed an incorrect ranking for the percentage.