COVID-19 update

EDITOR’S NOTE: As a service to our readers, The Sentinel-Record will publish updates released each weekday by the city of Hot Springs and the state of Arkansas.

The following stats were shared Monday at Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s daily COVID-19 news conference in Little Rock and posted on the Arkansas Department of Health’s website:

• 3,017 confirmed cases statewide, up 76 from Sunday (Monday’s results included 16 cases from the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction).

• 40,457 test results, up 2,404 from Saturday.

• 7.5% infection rate.

• 987 recoveries, up 17 from Saturday.

• 50 deaths, up one from Sunday

• 109 cases requiring hospitalization, up two from Sunday.

• 316 health care workers infected, up 13 from Sunday.

• 203 nursing home residents infected, up nine from Saturday.

• 25 cases on a ventilator, up three from Saturday.

• 112 cases in Garland County, up two from Saturday.

• 1,940 test results from Garland County, up 194 from Saturday.

• 5.8% rate of infection, down from 6.3% Saturday.

• 72 recoveries in Garland County, up three from Saturday.

Hutchinson and Dr. Nate Smith, Health Department secretary, said infection rates as a percent of tests performed during last weekend’s testing surge showed the numbers are trending in a promising direction ahead of the state’s May 4 target date for reopening parts of the economy.

A 7.9% rate was reported from the 1,079 tests Friday, 4.8% from the 1,598 tests Saturday and 1.8% from the 1,506 tests Sunday. Saturday and Sunday’s rates were lower than the 7.5% reported from the more than 40,000 tests conducted on Arkansas residents since the outbreak began. The statewide infection rate as a percent of tests was as high as 30% early in the outbreak, Hutchinson said.

Smith attributed some of the positive cases from Friday’s testing to inmates in the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction. The outbreak in the Lincoln County prison has accounted for more than a quarter of positive cases statewide. Smith reported 856 inmates have tested positive.

He said Saturday and Sunday’s testing didn’t include large numbers of high-risk groups, such as nursing home residents and people living in correctional facilities or other congregate living areas. Excluding those groups provides a better sampling of infection rates statewide, he said.

“I think the 1.8% (Sunday) is representative of what we expect from testing in the community,” he said.

He said in one of last week’s briefings that the state isn’t likely to know when it has reached peak infections until after the high point has passed.

“It’s a little hard to identify a peak I think in this case until you’re well past it,” he said, noting that the state’s infection curve has been inconsistent. “Our curve is not really the kind of shape that it would be easy to model mathematically. So I would say we’re at a point where we need to look at how things are going day to day.”

Garland County’s infection rate has also dropped from its high of 9.3% early in the outbreak. It fell to 5.8% Monday as a percent of total results from specimens collected from county residents, down from 6.9% a week earlier. It ticked up to 7.2% April 21 and declined each of the next four days, falling to 6.3% Saturday.

Thirteen new cases have been reported during the two weeks that began April 13, meaning fewer than one new case per day has been reported over those 14 days.

The city announced the household hazardous waste event scheduled May 16 has been canceled. A fall household hazardous waste event is scheduled for Oct. 17. An E-waste event is scheduled for Aug. 14-15.