State adds 712 covid cases; hospitalizations slip

Thomas Cook, with the Arkansas Army National Guard, administers a test for COVID-19 at a drive-thru screening site at UAMS on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022. Gov. Asa Hutchinson visited the medical campus to welcome 12 Arkansas National Guard soldiers who are helping with the demand at the drive-thru screening site. See more photos at arkansasonline.com/15uams/..(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Stephen Swofford)
Thomas Cook, with the Arkansas Army National Guard, administers a test for COVID-19 at a drive-thru screening site at UAMS on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022. Gov. Asa Hutchinson visited the medical campus to welcome 12 Arkansas National Guard soldiers who are helping with the demand at the drive-thru screening site. See more photos at arkansasonline.com/15uams/..(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Stephen Swofford)

Continuing a post-Memorial Day spike, Arkansas' count of coronavirus cases rose Friday by 712 -- the second daily increase in a row that was the largest since March -- even as the number of people hospitalized in the state with covid-19 fell back below 100.

The state's death toll from the virus, as tracked by the Arkansas Department of Health, rose by six, to 11,498.

The increase in cases was larger by 321 than the one the previous Friday.

It was the biggest one-day jump since March 21, a time when the state's new case numbers were inflated by a backlog of reports faxed weeks earlier during a surge of infections from the omicron variant.

The second-biggest increase since March 21 was the 635 cases that were added on Thursday.

State Epidemiologist Mike Cima said Friday's increase was in line with the gradual upward trend in new cases that began a few days after Easter.

Infections that occurred during Memorial Day gatherings could be contributing to the uptick but don't "seem to be having any major impact" like previous holidays have had, he said.

"I think this is more of a linear increase rather than bordering on an exponential increase" such as the ones seen during previous waves of infections, he said.

He said the number hospitalized, while more than double the low point it reached in early May, remains "incredibly low" compared with other points in the pandemic, which he credited to vaccinations and treatments such as Pfizer's Paxlovid pill.

He said he's also been encouraged that new cases have started to level off or decline in some northeastern states that began experiencing upticks before Arkansas.

"It's still not great that the virus is circulating," Cima said.

"As we've seen in the past few years, given an abundance of chances, this virus is going to continue to mutate in ways that aren't exactly favorable to us."

He said two of the six deaths reported Friday happened within the past month. Of the others, two were from January, one was from February and one was from March.

Growing for the second day in a row, the average daily increase in the state's case count over a rolling seven-day period rose Friday to 391, its highest level since the week ending March 25.

With new cases outnumbering recoveries, the number of cases in the state that were considered active rose by 369, to 4,529, the largest number since March 1.

It was the biggest one-day increase in the active-case total since Jan. 22, during the winter omicron surge.

After rising the previous five days, the number of covid-19 patients in the state's hospitals fell Friday by eight, to 97.

The number of the state's virus patients who were on ventilators remained for a third day at seven.

The number in intensive care, which didn't change on Thursday, rose Friday by three, to 21.

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Center in Little Rock had 10 covid-19 patients on Friday, spokeswoman Leslie Taylor said.

"Our numbers have been pretty stable for the last several weeks," she said.

"We did have a day or two where we went down, like, to two patients but pretty much it's been nine or 10."

She said two of the patients on Friday were in intensive care and none were on ventilators.

Five of the 10 patients had been fully vaccinated, she said. She said she didn't have information on how many of the patients had had boosters.

CASES BY COUNTY

Pulaski County had the most new cases, 156, on Friday, followed by Benton County with 52 and Washington County with 50.

The state's cumulative count of cases since March 2020 rose to 845,175.

The Health Department's tally of vaccine doses that had been administered grew by 2,074, which was larger by 467 than the the daily increase a week earlier.

The number of people receiving the vaccine for the first time rose by 516, which was up by 188 from the increase in first doses a week earlier.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of Arkansans who had received at least one dose remained Friday at 67.1%, and the percentage who were fully vaccinated remained at 54.8%.

The percentage of those fully vaccinated who had receive a booster dose remained at 40.2%.

Among the states and District of Columbia, Arkansas continued to rank 37th in the percentage of its residents who had received at least one dose.

In the percentage who were fully vaccinated, it continued to be roughly tied with Tennessee for 46th, 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, 46.8% had received a booster dose.


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