State patients on ventilators decline by 31
Hospitalizations hit 1,313; covid death toll rises by 35
After setting records the previous two days, the number of covid-19 patients on ventilators in Arkansas fell by 31 on Wednesday.
The Department of Health also reported that the number of covid-19 patients who were hospitalized in the state rose by 101, but officials said that increase was partly the result of an inaccurate number that was reported on Tuesday.
“The increase from Monday to today is correct, but yesterday’s hospitalizations were under-reported, so all of those came into today’s report,” department Chief Medical Officer Jennifer Dillaha said.
The state’s count of cases rose by 2,890 — the second daily increase in a row that was larger than the one a week earlier.
Arkansas’ death toll from the virus, as tracked by the Health Department, rose by 35, to 6,969.
The number of virus patients who were on ventilators fell to 357, its lowest level since Sunday.
The total number of covid-19 patients in hospitals, meanwhile, rose to 1,313, its highest level since Friday.
On Tuesday, the Health Department reported that the number of covid-19 patients in the state’s hospitals fell by 45, to 1,212, its lowest level since Aug. 1.
But Dillaha said Wednesday that number reported Tuesday was smaller than it should have been because it didn’t include updated information from all the state’s
hospitals.
“The hospitals don’t all report at the same time, apparently, so we were missing some information that potentially could have been included and was not, but it was included today,” she said.
The number reported to be hospitalized as of Wednesday was up by 56 from Monday’s number.
Health Department spokeswoman Meg Mirivel said the numbers of patients who were reported to be on ventilators and in intensive care on Tuesday were accurate.
She said it wasn’t possible to determine the true number of patients who were hospitalized as of Tuesday.
“Hospitalizations change frequently, so that’s why we try to pull it roughly at the same time every day,” Mirivel said.
“Without pulling at the same time with all the information in yesterday, we don’t really have a solid handle on what the exact number would have been.”
The number of covid-19 patients who were in intensive care, which reached a record of 558 on Aug. 23, fell Wednesday for the second day in a row, going from 531 on Tuesday to 522.
The number of intensive care unit beds that were unoccupied rose by nine, to 28.
Covid-19 patients made up about 47% of all the state’s pa- tients who were in intensive care as of Wednesday, down from 49% a day earlier.
The total number of covid-19 patients in Arkansas hospitals on Wednesday was still down from an all-time high of 1,459 on Aug. 16.
Compared to their peaks January during the state’s winter surge, the number hospitalized as of Wednesday was smaller by 58, while the number who were on ventilators was larger by 89.
The number who were in intensive care was larger by 64 than its January peak.
ICU BEDS PLANNED
At its 11 hospitals around the state, Baptist Health had a total of 277 covid-19 patients on Wednesday, down from an all-time high of 300 on Aug. 22.
The patients on Wednesday included 132 who were in intensive care and 96 who were on ventilators, spokeswoman Cara Wade said.
She said 87% of the patients had not been fully vaccinated.
After opening 157 hospital beds, including 33 ICU beds, for covid-19 patients with the help of $37.7 million from Arkansas’ allocation of funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, Wade said the health system planned to open 36 more ICU beds.
Two of those beds opened last week at Baptist HealthFort Smith and 12 were opened Tuesday at Baptist Health Medical Center-North Little Rock.
Wade said the health system plans to open 14 more adult ICU beds at its hospitals in Fort Smith and Conway by mid-September and eight neonatal intensive care unit beds at Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock by Oct. 1.
“Staffing is critical to being able to open these additional beds,” Wade said.
Baptist Health CEO Troy Wells said Tuesday the neonatal intensive care unit had been “extremely busy and even out of beds on certain days,” in part due to unvaccinated pregnant women who became infected with covid-19 and gave birth prematurely.
CHILD CASES RISING
The statewide increase in cases on Wednesday was larger by more than 100 than the one the previous Wednesday.
The average daily increase in the state’s case count over a rolling seven-day period rose to 2,076.
That was still down from an average of 2,242 cases a day the week ending Aug. 25, however, and a nearly seven-month high of 2,351 a day the week ending Aug. 7.
With new cases outpacing recoveries, the number of cases that were considered active rose Wednesday by 392, to 22,814.
The number on Wednesday was still smaller by 773 than the active case total a week earlier and down from a seven-month high of 25,735 that the number reached Aug. 15.
While the state’s active case total and average daily case increases are down from the levels they reached last month, cases have been on the rise among children and teenagers 18 and younger, Dillaha said.
According to information provided by the Health Department on Wednesday, the state had an average of 600 new cases a day among people in that age group the week ending Aug. 23, which was the highest daily average over seven days since the start of the pandemic.
People age 18 and younger make up about 26% of the state’s population but accounted for about 31% of the cases that were active as of Wednesday.
Dillaha said that age group is especially vulnerable because children under 12 are not yet eligible to be vaccinated and the vaccination rate among those age 12-18 is still low.
With students back in classrooms, “you have children in an environment where spread can take place readily if appropriate precautions are not taken,” Dillaha said.
“This is different than last year, when we had a different variant circulating which was not nearly as transmissible.”
She said she was also concerned that the return of college students to campuses, the start of football season and gatherings over Labor Day weekend could lead to an escalation in the state’s daily case increases.
She noted that Washington County had 366 new cases on Wednesday — the most of any county in the state.
“My concern is that many of those cases are associated with” the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, she said.
Benton County had the next highest new case total, 200, followed by Pulaski County, which had 194.
According to an update on Wednesday to UA’s online coronavirus dashboard, the number of active cases among students and employees rose by 37%, from 141 to 193, from Sunday to Tuesday.
That reflected 63 new cases and 11 recoveries.
The total of 193 active cases as of Tuesday included 177 student infections, 10 staff members infected and four faculty members with covid-19, as well as two graduate assistants.
INSTRUCTIONAL SHIFTS
Since classes for most public school students started on Aug. 16, school districts have only reported a few shifts to virtual instruction in response to virus cases or quarantines.
The Greenland School District reported to the state Tuesday night that seventh-graders at the middle school were sent home for the rest of the week after 38 of 51 students were identified as positive for covid-19 or in quarantine.
The district’s website shows that of the 714 students districtwide, 14 have covid and 117 were quarantined on Tuesday.
Of the 125 staff, five have covid-19 and eight are currently quarantined.
The Augusta School District plans to hold school for just a half-day on Friday.
Superintendent Cathy Tanner said Wednesday that staff will use the early student release time to “do extensive cleaning plus attend professional development in regards to what we can do better as a staff to prevent the spread of COVID, quarantining of students, and communicating with parents.”
According to its website, the Augusta district requires students to wear masks “anywhere social distancing is not possible.”
Greenland’s School Board rejected a mask requirement on Aug. 17, according to the district’s Facebook page.
According to the district’s website, masks are “encouraged” but can removed when social distancing is possible.
In the 24 hours ending at 3 p.m. Wednesday, the Little Rock School District, which has a requirement for students and employees to wear masks, reported that six students had tested positive for the virus and one employee and 70 students were required to quarantine after being near an infected person.
CUMULATIVE HOSPITALIZATIONS
Since Arkansas’ first case was diagnosed in March 2020, a total of 24,146 people have been hospitalized in the state with covid-19, the Health Department reported Wednesday.
That number is made up of cases that were confirmed through molecular tests as well as “probable” cases, which include those identified through less-sensitive antigen tests.
Previously the Health Department released an updated tally each day on people who have ever been hospitalized with covid-19 in Arkansas that included only confirmed cases.
For instance, the number of people who had ever been hospitalized with confirmed infections in Arkansas as of Tuesday was 21,300.
Similarly, the department reported that 2,438 people infected with covid-19 — including probable and confirmed cases — have been placed on ventilators.
Dillaha said the department made the change in reporting to be consistent with its case numbers, which include both probable and confirmed cases.
The numbers reported by the department of people with covid-19 who are now in Arkansas hospitals, in intensive care and on ventilators also already included both probable and confirmed cases.
“We had started out in the beginning of the pandemic with just confirmed cases, and we added probable, and we did not do that to the [cumulative] hospital num bbers as early as we might have,” Dillaha said.
Information on how many of the people ever hospitalized and placed on ventilators were considered probable cases wasn’t available from the Health Department on Wednesday.
STATE RANKINGS
According to rankings on Wednesday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Arkansas continued to have the country’s 11th-highest number of new cases per capita over a rolling seven-day period.
Arkansas’ new deaths per capita continued to be the country’s second-highest, although Mississippi replaced Louisiana as the state with the highest rate.
Arkansas’ cumulative count of covid-19 cases rose Wednesday to 455,781.
Dillaha said all of the deaths reported Wednesday happened within the past month.
She said 13.2% of the state’s coronavirus tests were positive during the seven-day span ending Tuesday, up from the 12.9% that was initially reported for the week ending Monday.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson has said he wants to keep the percentage below 10%.
VACCINATIONS UP
At 12,429, the increase in vaccine doses that providers reported having administered, including second and third doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, was the second daily increase in a row that was larger than the one a week earlier.
The average number of doses administered each day over a rolling seven-day period rose to 13,284, which was still below a nearly fourmonth high of 13,361 the average reached the week ending Friday.
According to the CDC, the number of Arkansans who had received at least one vaccine dose rose Wednesday by 5,380, to 1,609,947, representing about 53.3% of the population.
The number who had been fully vaccinated rose by 7,904, to 1,260,972, or about 41.8% of the population.
Among the states and District of Columbia, Arkansas continued to rank 37th in the percentage of its residents who had received at least one dose and 44th in the percentage who had been fully vaccinated.
Nationally, 61.9% of people had received at least one dose, and 52.6% had been fully vaccinated.