COVID-19 update
EDITOR’S NOTE: As a service to our readers, The SentinelRecord publishes updates released each weekday by the city of Hot Springs and the state of Arkansas. As of presstime, not all of the daily updates had been released by the Arkansas Department of Health.
The following stats were shared Tuesday at Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s daily COVID-19 news conference in Little Rock and posted on the Arkansas Department of Health’s website:
• 24,512 cumulative cases, up 259 from Monday.
• 5,486 active cases, down 641 from Monday.
• 18,725 recoveries, up 891 from Monday.
• 852 cumulative nursing home residents infected, up four from Monday.
• 301 deaths, up nine from Monday.
New cases and hospitalizations moved in opposite directions Tuesday, with the former falling to its lowest point in more than four weeks and the latter reaching an all-time high.
The 259 new cases reported Tuesday were the fewest since the 226 reported June 5, dropping the rolling seven-day average of new cases to its lowest point in two weeks. Tuesday’s 532.29 average was more than 12% lower than the June 28 peak of 608.14. The average was 100.6 eight weeks ago.
The net increase of 32 COVID-19 patients in hospitals Tuesday was the largest single-day increase, raising hospitalizations to 369. Hospitalizations have increased more than 27% in a week and 525% in eight weeks.
“That’s a lagging indicator,” Hutchinson said. “If you remember the spike in cases we had a week ago, now we’re seeing some of the results of that through our increased hospitalizations.”
Dr. Nate Smith, Health Department secretary, said a Pulaski County hospital had the largest increase in COVID-19 patients but noted hospitalizations are distributed widely enough so as not to strain any one hospital’s capacity.
Tuesday’s low number of new cases relative to the
400 to more than 800 daily cases reported in the last month came from about half of the number of tests typically completed in a 24hour period. Hutchinson said the state received 3,366 test reports during the 24 hours leading up to Tuesday afternoon’s briefing.
“That’s still a lot of tests compared to what we were doing two months ago,” he said. “I’m tempering my enthusiasm and optimism about that low number of new cases. Let’s wait and see what the next few days indicate.”
Hutchinson said 3,615 test results were reported in the 24 hours leading up to Monday’s briefing. Smith said the holiday weekend contributed to the two days of low test numbers, explaining that fewer people were available to collect specimens from the public.
The state needs to do more than 6,400 tests per day to meet its revised goal of 200,000 tests in July, a number representing almost two-thirds of the combined testing for March, April, May and June.
“We expect those to pick up now that specimens are being collected again,” Smith said. “We collected over 700 specimens at our local health units yesterday. That’s approaching the highest we’ve done. We know there’s a demand out there. We just need to keep testing.”
Smith said the strategy for reaching the July goal includes more testing in nursing homes and proactive testing in correctional facilities.
Hutchinson said the Health Department’s public health lab is equipped and supplied to help meet the goal. A second high throughput machine purchased with funds from the state’s $1.25 billion in federal coronavirus relief is set to come online soon, Smith said last week.
But a backlog of specimens at commercial labs used by clinics and hospitals could complicate the initiative, Hutchinson said, explaining that labs have been inundated with specimens from states with rising case counts. Smith said Monday that hospitals using rapid-result testing platforms are struggling to find reagents for the point-of-care machines.
The city said free drivethrough testing courtesy of Healthy Connections is available today from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at The Centre at Forest Lakes, 305 Forest Lakes Blvd. No symptoms or insurance are required.