State sees virus cases top 1,000, a first for week

Garland County rise highest; 22% of added cases elderly

The daily increase in Arkansas’ count of coronavirus cases Thursday topped 1,000 for the first time this week, while falling short of the increase on the same day a week earlier for the second day in a row.

The tally of confirmed and probable cases rose by 1,072.

The state’s death toll from the virus, as tracked by the state Department of Health, rose by 19, to 1,894.

After falling Wednesday from a record high, the number of covid-19 patients hospitalized in the state rose Thursday by four, to 666.

That was still short of the 676 patients who were hospitalized as of Tuesday.

The patients Thursday included 100 who were on ventilators, up from 99 a day earlier.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson, in a statement, noted the difference between the number of cases added Thursday and the 1,202 that were added the previous Thursday.

“This decrease was also recorded with an increase

in total testing from this time last week,” Hutchinson said.

“While these numbers may provide some encouragement, we know that we still have a long way to go to beat covid-19.”

State Epidemiologist Jennifer Dillaha said the state’s new virus cases are “still too high,” although the latest increase was “kind of not as bad as last Thursday.”

“I don’t know what that means in terms of the trend,” she said, adding, “We’ll see how tomorrow goes.”

The cases added to the state’s tallies Thursday included 837 that were confirmed through polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests.

The other 235 were “probable” cases, which include those identified through less-sensitive antigen tests.

Among the state’s 75 counties, Garland County had the biggest increase, with 110 confirmed and probable cases added to the Health Department’s count.

“We don’t have a specific breakdown yet, but the bulk of these appear to be from nursing homes,” Health Department spokesman Gavin Lesnick said in an email.

Dillaha said the spike there is “of concern, because Garland County has a population that has a higher age, a lot of folks in retirement.”

“So that’s concerning to me, because the older adults are the ones that are at higher risk” of serious complications from covid-19, she said.

Possibly because of slowdowns in testing on weekends, the state’s daily increases in cases have tended to peak on Thursday or Friday before tapering off.

Thursday’s increase was the biggest so far this week.

But over a rolling seven-day period, the average number of confirmed and probable cases added to the state’s tallies each day fell for the second straight day, dipping below 1,000 for the first time this week.

From a peak of 1,034 on Tuesday, the average daily increase fell to 1,006 as of Wednesday and 988 on Thursday.

The 4,394 cases that had been added to the state’s tallies this week as of Thursday were still slightly more than the 4,376 at the same point last week, however.

The state’s cumulative cases count rose to 109,712.

That comprised 101,588 confirmed cases and 8,124 probable ones.

After falling for three days, the number of confirmed or probable cases that were considered active rose by 163, to 9,466, as 890 Arkansans were newly classified as having recovered.

The active case total remained below the state’s peak of 9,766 cases as of Sunday, however.

The state’s death toll rose by 18, to 1,732, among confirmed cases, and by one, to 162, among probable cases.

The number of Arkansans who have ever been hospitalized with the virus rose by 47, to 6,967.

The number who have ever been on ventilators rose by four, to 829.

Despite the different classifications, the Health Department has said it treats confirmed and probable cases the same in its contact-tracing efforts.

That includes requiring people whose results are positive from either type of test to isolate themselves and for those they may have infected to quarantine.

For most of the pandemic, elderly Arkansans have been less likely than other age groups to catch the virus, but that has shifted in recent weeks.

On Thursday, 22% of the cases added to the state’s tallies were among residents 65 or older, even though that group makes up just 17% of the state’s population.

The 239 cases added Thursday among elderly Arkansans translated to a rate of 47 cases per 100,000 residents in that age group.

The rate of cases per 100,000 residents was 18 for children, 41 for those 18-24, and 39 for those 25-64.

Health Secretary Jose Romero earlier this week cited the rise in infections among the elderly as a contributor to the state’s elevated level of hospitalizations.

While some cases have been among nursing home residents, those don’t account for the entire uptick, he said.

“I think it is community spread,” including among family members, Dillaha said Thursday.

The state’s growing number of clusters linked to churches could be contributing to the increase, she said, since “churchgoers tend to be older.”

Aside from Garland County’s increase, the biggest rises in the state’s case counts were in Pulaski and Washington counties, which each had increases

In a statement Wednesday, Hutchinson highlighted the more than 300,000 covid-19 tests that had been conducted this month as of Tuesday, saying that “means that over 10% of the population of Arkansas was tested for COVID-19 in the past 27 days.”

But Health Department spokeswoman Danyelle McNeill said Thursday that all negative test results are included in the testing numbers, even if the same person has a negative result multiple times.

The duplicate positive results for the same person are eliminated from the numbers, so those each represent one individual, she said. Duplicate negative results are not eliminated, however.

“We don’t have data available showing negatives as unique individuals,” McNeill said in an email.

As to whether 10% of the state’s population has been tested this month, she said, “the tests represent the equivalent of 10% of the population, even if some tests represent the same person.”

Virus concerns prompted Earle High School to announce Thursday that it will shift to online-only instruction

Friday and Monday.

Superintendent Tish Knowles said the shift is because of “a couple of positive cases” at the school.

All staffers in the high school will also work remotely.

“We are doing contact tracing and will close down for deep cleaning for Friday and Monday,” Knowles said. “We will plan on resuming activities Tuesday.”

In its daily covid-19 report, the Little Rock School District reported five students had tested positive for the virus in the 24-hour period ending at 3 p.m. Thursday.

Three of the students were at Central High School, including one who was enrolled in virtual instruction.

The other students were at Forest Park Elementary and Pulaski Heights Middle School, which is holding all its classes online this week in response to earlier virus cases.

An additional 12 students and three staff members at several schools were required to quarantine. That included seven students at Forest Park, and one employee and one student at Central High.

The Conway School District reported having seven active cases among students and fewer than five such cases among its staff as of Wednesday, with an additional 137 students and seven staff members in quarantine.

According to biweekly Health Department reports, the number of active cases among public school employees and students Thursday topped 1,000 for the first time since the start of the school year.

From Monday to Thursday, the number of such cases grew by 116, to 1,078.

That increase came even as the number of school districts with at least five active cases fell from 69 Monday to 66 Thursday.

The Springdale School District continued to top the list with 52 active cases, followed by Rogers School District with 44 and Greene County Tech School District with 39.

Including people who have recovered, the cumulative total of cases at public schools rose by 541, to 8,509, between Monday and Thursday.

In a weekly update on its website, the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement listed 40 school districts as being in the “red zone,” based on the number of new cases among residents within their boundaries over a two-week period.

That was down from 42 districts with the label a week earlier.

The center lists districts as being in the red zone if they had at least 50 cases per 10,000 residents who are not incarcerated or residents of nursing homes or state-run centers for the developmentally disabled over a two-week span.

On Thursday, 12 districts were added to the list, while 14 were removed.

Two districts, Mammoth Spring and Marked Tree, had more than 100 new cases per 10,000 residents — amounting to at least 1% of the population in those districts, the center noted.

In a video conference Thursday for city officials and others, Center for Health Improvement Chief Executive Officer Joe Thompson said leaders in the red zone districts should encourage people to wear masks and consider imposing a curfew to curb the virus’s spread.

“This is not a time to actually think that things are the same that they were two or three weeks ago,” Thompson said.

“This is a time when your community has lost control of the spread of the virus, and anyone who is not wearing a mask is a personal risk to those around them.”

Meanwhile, after falling last week and Monday, the number of active cases listed on Health Department reports at colleges and universities rose by 27, to 404, between Monday and Thursday.

That was still well below the peak of more than 1,200 active cases in early September.

The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville was listed Thursday as having the most active cases, 53, followed by Harding University in Searcy with 39 and the University of Central Arkansas in Conway with 28.

On its website, Arkansas State University in Jonesboro reported having 49 active cases Thursday, up from 46 a day earlier.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock reported 10 active cases on campus Wednesday, the last time the school updated its case numbers online. That figure brings the total cumulative cases since March at UALR to 92.