Arkansas' count of coronavirus cases grew Tuesday by 805 -- the biggest one-day spike since March -- as the number of covid-19 patients in the state's hospitals jumped to a new two-month high of 135.
With new cases outpacing recoveries, the number of cases in the state that were considered active rose by 321, to 5,049, the first time it had been above 5,000 since Feb. 28.
Arkansas' death toll from the virus, as tracked by the state Department of Health, rose by three, to 11,508.
The increase in total cases was more than four times as large as the rise on Monday and the one a week earlier that was likely affected by a slowdown in testing around Memorial Day.
It was the largest daily increase since March 19 and the first one since then to top 800.
Previously, the biggest increase since March had been the 712 cases that were added on Friday.
State Epidemiologist Mike Cima said the size of the increase Tuesday was not "all that surprising" and in line with the upward trend the state has experienced over the past few weeks.
He said he didn't think gatherings over Memorial Day weekend were a significant driver of the uptick.
"To the extent that it's having a springboard effect, I don't necessarily think so," Cima said.
"It's certainly not helping the matter, but I think that we would be in this situation -- this situation being an increase in cases and hospitalizations -- regardless of a calendar holiday."
He said the number of people hospitalized with covid-19 remained at "a very manageable" level, and he noted the numbers of patients in intensive care and on ventilators were near their lowest points since the state's first case was identified in March 2020.
"This is a different kind of period to what we've experienced in previous parts of the pandemic," he said.
That's partly because of treatments such as Pfizer's Paxlovid pill and the number of people who have some immunity from vaccination, previous infections, or both, he said.
Also, while other recent waves of infections were driven by new variants, such as the delta variant last summer and omicron this past winter, the current uptick has been fueled by new versions of the omicron variant.
"When delta emerged, by comparison to the dominating lineage at that time, it was leaps and bounds more infectious, which is why it took over so rapidly and why cases exploded so rapidly," Cima said.
"The exact same thing was true for omicron."
In contrast, the new omicron subvariants are "each more infectious than original omicron strain, but not to such a degree that it causes this unbelievable surge of cases," Cima said.
According to estimates updated Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a subvariant known as BA.2.12.1 remains the dominant strain nationwide, accounting for 62.2% of the country's cases last week.
Two other subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, were responsible for a combined 13% of the cases, up from 7.5% the previous week.
In the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services region encompassing Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, the estimated percentage of cases caused by BA.4 and BA.5 last week was even greater -- 22.1%, up from 13.3% the previous week.
Cima said it's unclear how BA.4 and BA.5 will affect Arkansas' trajectory of new cases.
While the two strains were blamed for a recent surge in cases in South Africa, in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, "the needle is not really moving at all," he said.
"They have BA.4 and BA.5 there, but their case rates and hospitalization rates are pretty much as low as they have been in quite a while," Cima said.
MORE HOSPITALIZED
Along with Arkansas' new case numbers, Cima said the percentage of coronavirus tests in the state that are positive has been rising, topping 11% over the past week.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson has said he wants to keep the percentage below 10%.
Cima said all the deaths reported Tuesday happened within the past month.
Growing for the sixth day in a row, the average daily increase in the state's case count over a rolling seven-day period rose to 509, its highest level since the week ending March 24.
After rising by 20 on Monday, the number of people hospitalized with covid-19 in Arkansas rose Tuesday by 19, reaching its highest level since March 24.
After falling the previous three days, the number of the state's virus patients who were on ventilators grew by one, to four.
Dropping for the third day in a row, the number who were in intensive care fell by two, to 15.
At its 11 hospitals around the state, Baptist Health had 28 covid-19 patients on Tuesday, down from 29 a day earlier and a record 368 in January, spokeswoman Cara Wade said in an email.
"We have seen a slight increase over the past week where we had 19 patients hospitalized with COVID-19, and today we have 28 hospitalized with COVID-19," Wade said.
"The severity of the illness is relatively mild compared to previous COVID-19 surges. Our infectious disease physicians continually monitor and pay attention to these numbers daily, but they do not have any concerns at this point."
Two of the patients on Tuesday were in intensive care, and none were on ventilators, she said.
So far this month, she said an average of 83 people a day were getting tested at Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock's drive-thru testing site, up from 60 a day in May.
"This number was much higher earlier this year – most notably when we tested 1,700 in one day in January at Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock," Wade said.
"This slight increase is consistent with what we are seeing at our testing facilities across the state."
At its hospitals in Little Rock and Springdale, Arkansas Children's had nine covid-19 patients on Tuesday, up from eight on Thursday, spokeswoman Hilary DeMillo said.
CASES BY COUNTY
Pulaski County had the most new cases, 148, on Tuesday, followed by Benton County with 79 and Washington County with 53.
The state's cumulative count of cases since March 2020 rose to 846,924.
The Health Department's tally of vaccine doses that had been administered rose by 2,691, which was almost double the daily increase the day after Memorial Day.
People receiving their first booster doses accounted for about a third of the most recent increase.
The count of people starting the vaccination process rose by 1,272, which was up from an increase of just 25 people a week earlier.
According to the CDC, the percentage of Arkansans who had received at least one dose remained Tuesday at 67.1% and the percentage who were fully vaccinated remained at 54.8%.
The percentage of those fully vaccinated who had received a booster dose remained at 40.3%.
Among the states and the 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, 78% of people had received at least one dose, and 66.7% were fully vaccinated.
Of the fully vaccinated population nationally, 46.9% had received a booster dose.