The Arkansas Department of Health reported 670 new coronavirus cases on Friday, outpacing recoveries and pushing active cases of the virus above 6,000 for the first time since February.
However, Friday's daily increase in total covid-19 cases was the first in nine days that was smaller than the increase a week earlier.
The state's count of active covid cases rose by 305, to 6,188, the largest number since Feb. 26.
After falling by one on Thursday, the number of covid-19 patients in the state's hospitals remained Friday at 145.
For the third time in the past week, the state didn't report an increase in covid-19 deaths. The death toll since March 2020, as tracked by the state Health Department, remained at 11,512.
Friday's report of 670 new covid cases was larger by just seven than Thursday's increase of 663 cases, and smaller by 42 than the rise reported the previous Friday.
The increases on both Thursday and Friday were smaller than the ones on Tuesday and Wednesday, when the state's case count rose by more than 800 each day.
Before this week, the last time the state had 800 or more new cases in a single day was March 19.
After rising the previous eight days, the average daily increase in the state's case count over a rolling seven-day period fell Friday to 567.
The number of the state's virus patients who were on ventilators rose Friday by two, to six, after falling by one on Thursday.
The number of virus patients who were in intensive care, which fell by two on Thursday, rose Friday by 10, the state's largest single-day increase in covid-19 patients in intensive care since Feb. 25.
The state Health Department reported 27 covid patients in intensive care on Friday, the highest count in more than three weeks.
Since the pandemic reached Arkansas in March 2020, the state has reported 849,144 cases of the coronavirus. Of those, 831,214 are considered recovered.
More details in Saturday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.