COVID-19 UPDATE

As a service to our readers, The Sentinel-Record publishes updates released by the city of Hot Springs and the state of Arkansas.

The following stats were posted on the Health Department’s website:

• 263,933 cumulative confirmed cases, up 157 from Thursday.

• 145.86 rolling seven-day average of new confirmed cases, up 1.15 from Thursday.

• 2,994,236 PCR test reports, up 2,976 from Thursday.

• 8.8% cumulative PCR infection rate, no change from Thursday.

• 73,237 cumulative probable cases, up 65 from Thursday.

• 15.1% cumulative antigen infection rate, no change from Thursday.

• 2,176 active confirmed and probable cases, up 25 from Thursday.

• 329,179 recoveries of confirmed and probable cases, up

195 from Thursday.

• 2,545,360 vaccine doses received, up 7,290 from Thursday.

• 1,790,444 doses given, up

12,888 from Thursday.

• 175 hospitalizations, down two from Thursday.

• 37 cases on a ventilator, up three from Thursday.

• 76 ICU patients, down two from Thursday.

• 4,574 confirmed deaths, up two from Thursday.

• 1,185 probable deaths, no change from Thursday.

• 2,081 nursing home deaths, up one from Thursday.

• 8,536 cumulative confirmed cases in Garland County, up one from Thursday.

• 2.0 rolling seven-day average of new confirmed cases, down 0.29 from Thursday.

• 116,089 PCR and antigen test reports, up 53 from Thursday.

• 87,993 private lab reports, up 52 from Thursday.

• 28,096 public lab reports, up one from Thursday

• 8.5% cumulative PCR infection rate, no change from Thursday.

• 32 active confirmed cases in Garland County, down two from Thursday.

• 8,294 recoveries of confirmed cases in Garland County, up three from Thursday.

• 1,605 cumulative probable cases in Garland County, no change from Thursday.

• Five active probable cases in Garland County, no change from Thursday.

• 210 confirmed deaths, no change from Thursday.

• 49 probable deaths, no change from Thursday.

Arkansas is the third state to opt out of federal pandemic unemployment benefits, with Gov. Asa Hutchinson announcing Friday that the weekly $300 supplemental benefit will end after June

26.

Montana and South Carolina said they’re opting out of unemployment enhancement programs at the end of next month.

The $600 a week supplemental benefit ended last July.

A study that same month by the National Bureau of Economic Research revealed that two-thirds of workers who were laid off during the pandemic were making more on unemployment than they were at their jobs.

“The programs were implemented to assist the unemployed during the pandemic when businesses were laying off employees and jobs were scarce,” Hutchinson said Friday in a news release.

“As we emerge from

COVID-19, retail and service companies, restaurants and industry are attempting to return to pre-pandemic unemployment levels, but employees are as scarce today as jobs were a year ago.

“The $300 federal supplement helped thousands of Arkansans make it through this tough time, so it served a good purpose. Now we need Arkansans back on the job, so that we can get our economy back to full speed.”

The three states are also opting out of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. PUA was a parallel benefit established for independent contractors and gig-economy workers.

Those workers don’t qualify for state unemployment benefits.

The Economic Policy Institute said reports of labor shortages are mostly based on anecdotal evidence.

Citing a Yale University Study from July that found no evidence to support claims that the $600 a week supplemental benefit adversely affected labor supply, EPI said wages aren’t rising quickly enough to attract workers in a tight labor market.