A sharp uptick in Arkansas' new coronavirus cases continued for a second day on Friday. The state's case count rose by 1,062, the first two-day streak of more than 1,000 new daily covid-19 cases in more than four months.
The state's death toll from the virus, as tracked by the Arkansas Department of Health, rose by five, to 11,564.
However, the number of covid-19 patients in the state's hospitals fell by five, to 191. The count had risen the previous two days.
Friday's increase in cases was smaller than the spike of 1,434 cases on Thursday, but it was larger by 282 than the one the previous Friday.
Along with a rise of exactly 1,000 cases on June 16, it was just the third daily increase since March that was in the quadruple digits.
The average daily increase in the state's case count over a rolling seven-day period rose Friday to 801, the first time it had been above 800 since the week ending Feb. 24, during the state's first wave of infections from the omicron variant. That average was produced by reports of more than 5,600 new cases over the seven-day period.
Already at its highest level since Feb. 21, the number of cases in the state that were considered active rose by 361, to 9,595, as new cases continued to outpace recoveries.
Dropping for the third day in a row, the number of the state's virus patients who were on ventilators fell by one, to nine.
However, the number who were in intensive care rose by six, to 38. That count was unchanged a day earlier.
Since the pandemic reached Arkansas in March 2020, the state Health Department has reported 859,615 cases of coronavirus. Of those, 838,226 are considered recovered.
More details in Saturday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.