Rising for the third day in a row, the number of people hospitalized with covid-19 in Arkansas reached its highest level Tuesday in more than seven weeks.
Meanwhile, likely reflecting a slowdown in testing and reporting on Memorial Day, the state's count of cases rose by 179, the first increase in five days that was smaller than the one a week earlier.
Also, for the first time in more than a week, the state didn't report an increase in covid-19 deaths. The death toll, as tracked by the Arkansas Department of Health, remained at 11,484.
State Epidemiologist Mike Cima said the drop in new cases on Tuesday was "a little bit of an aberration because we're coming off of that holiday."
He said he expects the upward trend that began a few days after Easter to persist for at least awhile longer.
"We'll see what happens the rest of this week, but for me all the signs are pointing toward a continuation of what we were experiencing," Cima said.
The number of covid-19 patients in the state's hospitals rose Tuesday by five, to 76, its highest level since April 8.
After rising by one on Monday, the number of the state's virus patients who were on ventilators remained Tuesday at five.
The number who were in intensive care, which didn't change on Monday, fell Tuesday by three, to 12.
At its hospitals in Little Rock and Springdale, Arkansas Children's had two covid-19 patients as of Tuesday, spokeswoman Hilary DeMillo said in an email.
"I'm not able to provide more detailed information because when we get to lower numbers in these categories, those specifics can be interpreted as identifying information," DeMillo said.
The increase in cases on Tuesday was smaller by 61 than the rise on Monday and less than half the size of the one the previous Tuesday.
After reaching a more than two-month high a day earlier, the average daily increase in the state's case count over a rolling seven-day period fell Tuesday to 320.
With recoveries outpacing new cases, the number of cases in the state that were considered active fell by 143, to 3,760, its second straight daily decline.
CASES BY COUNTY
Pulaski and Washington counties had the most new cases, with 25 each, on Tuesday, followed by Benton County with 16 and Craighead County with 13.
The state's cumulative count of cases since March 2020 rose to 843,362.
Like its new cases, the state's reported vaccinations were also down after the holiday.
The Health Department's tally of doses that had been administered rose by 151, which was down by more than 1,400 compared to the daily increase a week earlier.
The count of people receiving the vaccine for the first time rose by 25 -- the smallest daily increase since the department started regularly releasing daily vaccination numbers in January 2021.
Dropping for the fifth day in a row, the average number of doses administered each day over a rolling seven-day period fell Tuesday to 1,039, which was down from an average of almost 1,500 a day the previous week.
Hitting a new low, the average for first doses fell to 234.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 67% of Arkansans had received at least one dose as of Tuesday, and 54.7% were fully vaccinated.
Of those who were fully vaccinated, 40.1% had received a booster dose.
Among the states and District of Columbia, Arkansas ranked 37th in the percentage of its residents who had received at least one dose.
In the percentage who were fully vaccinated, it ranked 47th, ahead of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Wyoming.
Nationally, 77.9% of people had received at least one dose, and 66.7% were fully vaccinated.
Of the fully vaccinated population nationally, 46.7% had received a booster dose.