Saturday marked Arkansas' third day in a row with a record number of currently infectious covid-19 cases, according to data from the state's Department of Health, and the fifth consecutive day with a record number of virus patients in hospitals.
The department reported an increase of 1,435 active cases, for a total of 102,576. The number of covid-19 hospitalizations rose by only one on Saturday, but the total of 1,659 was the highest the state has seen since the pandemic began in March 2020.
"This is the lowest increase in hospitalizations since Christmas," Gov. Asa Hutchinson tweeted Saturday in his daily statement about the Health Department data. "This upcoming week will tell us what February will look like. Listen to your trusted medical professional and get the vaccine and booster."
Arkansas reported 8,118 new cases of the virus Saturday, a sharp drop from Friday's 13,073, which was the state's second-highest single-day case count. Cases and hospitalizations have been rising for weeks because of the highly infectious omicron variant of the virus.
Pulaski County had the most new cases, with 942. Benton County had 710, and Washington County had 636, according to Health Department data.
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The number of patients in intensive care increased by 38, to 464, exceeding the peak of 458 a year ago during the previous winter surge of the virus. The number of patients on ventilators topped 200 for the first time since Oct. 3, rising by 12 on Saturday for a total of 207.
More patients in intensive care can put a strain on hospitals, Health Department communications director Meg Mirivel said in an email.
"However, we are not yet to the peak in ICU [and] vent use that we saw during the Delta outbreak," she said.
A total of 9,498 Arkansans have died of covid-19, with 14 deaths recorded Saturday by the Health Department.
VACCINE DOSES
The state on Saturday reported that 6,909 more covid-19 vaccine doses had been administered, 1,754 more than on Friday but 4,943 fewer than on Jan. 15. According to Health Department data, 54% of Arkansans age 5 and older are fully vaccinated against covid-19, and 504,538 Arkansans have received a booster dose.
Turnout at a vaccination clinic at Mosaic Church in Little Rock was "tremendous" Saturday, said Clifford Allen, a health program specialist with the Health Department. The clinic opened at 3 p.m., but Allen said 50 to 75 people were waiting in line when he arrived at 1:45.
"Shortly after that, there were well over 100 people out there, so we've been playing catch-up, and by the time we were ready to open, there were 150 to 175 already here," he said.
The Health Department held the clinic in partnership with the city, which gave participants $50 gift cards as an incentive. The clinic offered Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for anyone 5 or older who wanted a first, second or third shot. Flu shots were also available.
By 5:30 p.m., some people had been waiting in line outside the church for three hours, including Courtney Fason and her 5-year-old daughter, Makena Beard. They live in Little Rock and arrived to get their first covid-19 vaccinations and their flu shots.
Fason said she had wanted to get vaccinated sooner but had trouble finding the time because she is a single mother and works two retail jobs.
"I had to get a ride on top of that, so really I've just been waiting for an opportunity," she said. "My grandma told me they were also paying [incentives], which is good in times like this."
She and Alberta Prosper of North Little Rock said they would have preferred that clinic organizers sign people up while they were still in line to speed up the process, since the weather was cold and the crowd made social distancing difficult.
Prosper works at a school and received her first two doses on campus in August. But the school is not administering booster shots, she said, so she sought hers at Saturday's clinic.
"I think a lot of people aren't realizing that [covid-19] is a crisis out here and people are dying," Prosper said. "Everybody should get vaccinated. They did it for polio and all that other [stuff] that was going on back in the day, so they should do it now."
More than 200 people had received covid-19 vaccine doses at the clinic by 7:30 p.m., an hour and a half after the event was supposed to end, and at least 50 people were still waiting for their shots, Allen said.
RISE IN TESTING
From Jan. 4 to Friday, more than 10,000 PCR test results had been reported to the Health Department for 14 out of 18 days, according to the department's data. On Friday, 11,656 PCR results were reported, along with 2,768 rapid tests.
Last week, Arkansas received the last shipment of the 1.5 million at-home rapid test kits that the state purchased in December with $10 million in grant money from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health Department local health units, public libraries and other locations began distributing the test kits for free Jan. 10.
The Central Arkansas Library System distributed the last of its test kits Saturday after starting with between 11,000 and 12,000, Director Nate Coulter said.
"We held some over for Saturday morning for people who couldn't get there [to pick them up] on a weekday afternoon," he said.
The library system also provided some test kits to Our House, a homeless aid organization in Little Rock, since some people did not have cars and could not drive to the libraries, Coulter said.
At-home rapid tests look for a covid-19 antigen, which might not be present within the first few days of infection, while PCR tests look for the genetic makeup of the virus and therefore can detect it at any stage of infection, Arkansas Center for Health Improvement CEO Joe Thompson said.
The increased accuracy of PCR tests also comes from the fact that they are always administered by health care professionals, while at-home tests might not have been administered correctly, Thompson said.
"A home test, if it's positive, means you do have [covid-19]," he said. "If it's negative, you may want to do another home test two days later to be sure."
If someone is exposed to covid-19 and tests negative without any symptoms of illness, then that person should still take a precautionary second at-home test in case of an asymptomatic infection, Thompson said.
In addition to the tests distributed by the state, people can request four free test kits per address from the federal government via a website launched last week.
Thompson said the optimum number of tests available in each household depends not only on how many people live there, but also on each person's chances of exposure, whether at school or at work, and whether someone has health conditions that make the virus more dangerous.
"A household with a family member at risk -- diabetes, chemo, COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] -- will need to be more aggressive in testing and have more tests to be sure omicron doesn't put their loved one at risk," Thompson said.
Pharmacist Phillip Judd gives a dose of covid-19 vaccine to Ariel Jeffers-Wilkes on Saturday at the Mosaic Church on Colonel Glenn Road in Little Rock. The city and the state Department of Health ran the free vaccination clinic as an outreach to the Hispanic community. More photos at arkansasonline.com/123vax/. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Stephen Swofford)
