Arkansas' count of coronavirus cases rose Wednesday by 812, a larger increase than was reported on Tuesday but smaller than the spike of 954 cases the previous Wednesday.
The state's death toll from the virus, as tracked by the Arkansas Department of Health, rose by two, to 11,552.
The number of covid-19 patients in the state's hospitals rose Wednesday by 15, to 193. The count had fallen for the previous two days after reaching 196 on Sunday.
After rising slightly a day earlier, the average daily increase in the state's case count over a rolling seven-day period fell Wednesday to 699, down from the nearly four-month high of 727 a day that the average reached on Sunday.
Wednesday's increase in total covid cases was the second daily increase in three days that was smaller than the one from the same day a week earlier. That breaks with a gradual upward trend in new cases that began in April.
The number of covid-19 cases in the state that were considered active rose by 124, to 8,468, as new cases outpaced recoveries. It was the second consecutive daily increase in the state's active-case count, but still down from the nearly four-month high of 8,763 cases that were active as of Sunday.
After rising the previous two days, the numbers of the state's virus patients who were on ventilators and in intensive care both fell Wednesday.
The number who were on ventilators, previously at its highest level since April, fell by four, to 11.
The number who were in intensive care, which had been at its highest level since March, fell by nine, to 32.
Since the pandemic reached Arkansas in March 2020, the state Health Department has reported 857,119 cases of the coronavirus. Of those, 836,869 are considered recovered.
More details in Thursday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.