ADH report shows virus cases declining in region

Covid cases appear to be on the decline throughout this region of Eastern Arkansas, according to the Arkansas Department of Health.

Over the past week, 133 new cases of the virus have been diagnosed in the sevencounty region that in addition to St. Francis includes Lee, Cross, Monroe, Woodruff, Phillips and Crittenden counties.

Only St. Francis and Crittenden counties added numbers to the Covid death tolls, with one person dying from the virus in SFC and three in Crittenden County over the past week.

To date, 67 SFC residents have died from Covid. Near the end of October last year, 10 people in the county had died from the virus.

So far this month, the ADH shows 74 more people from this region have died from the virus. Those numbers likely increased due to the ADH correcting previous reports on virus deaths, which added 68 for this region earlier this month. To date, the ADH reports 472 deaths in the region.

Covid testing has passed the 200,000 mark throughout the seven counties, with the ADH reporting 208,654 virus tests have been performed in this region.

Although most of the state, for the past several months has been considered “high community transmission” by the Centers for Disease Control, that designation has now been lowered for several counties.

In this region, Phillips and Crittenden counties are listed as “substantial transmission,” while the other five counties are still considered high. About eight counties throughout the state have seen their transmission levels lowered to moderate, with the closest to this area being Prairie County.

The CDC reports that over 50% of St. Francis County’s eligible population is partially vaccinated at 51.3%, with 44.5% considered fully vaccinated.

Woodruff County leads the area in vaccinations at 58.9% who have taken one dose and 51.6% fully vaccinated. The lowest vaccination rate in the area is in Lee County where 36.2% are partially vaccinated and 29.5% are fully vaccinated.