Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Wednesday that he hopes to hire 700 more people -- double what he had originally planned -- to help the state with its contact-tracing efforts, and he announced a goal to test 180,000 Arkansans for the coronavirus next month.
Hutchinson made the announcements as the state's count of coronavirus cases rose by 697, the third-highest one-day increase so far. The state's count of coronavirus cases topped 17,000, reaching 17,375.
The state's death toll from the virus, as tracked by the state Department of Health, rose by three to 240, while the number of Arkansans hospitalized with the virus increased by 19, to 267.
Fifty-eight of the patients were on ventilators, up from 57 a day earlier.
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At his daily news conference on the pandemic, Hutchinson said he would seek a recommendation from an advisory panel and legislative approval to double the $22 million in federal coronavirus relief funds the state had planned to spend on beefing up its contact tracing efforts over 18 months.
"Hopefully that will be more than sufficient, but right now we have an insufficient capacity to do the job," Hutchinson said.
A committee of officials from the Health Department and the Office of State Procurement on Wednesday interviewed six firms that were selected as finalists for a contract to supply 350 contact tracers that the state hopes to have on the job by Wednesday of next week. They would be in addition to the 200 Health Department staff members assigned to the task now.
Alex Johnston, a spokesman for the state Department of Transformation and Shared Services, said the finalists, selected from 28 firms that responded to an emergency bid solicitation, are the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care, Conduent State Healthcare, General Dynamics Information Technology, HUBFirst, Maximus Health Services and OptumInsight.
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If the additional allocation of funds is approved, Health Secretary Nate Smith said he hopes to award contracts to two finalists instead of just one.
He said the initial plan proposed by the department in May was based on an assumption that the state would have about 1,000 cases that were active, meaning the people had tested positive and had not yet recovered.
On Wednesday, however, the state had 5,567 active cases, an increase of 346 from a day earlier.
"We don't have a backlog of cases that have not been contacted, but then the process of getting their contacts and contacting their contacts, making sure they're tested and quarantined, that one we're not able to keep up with the way we did when we had only 1,000 active cases, and the way that we will once we have more people on board," Smith said.
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He said the department tries to reach people who test positive the same day it learns of the test result. Most are contacted within 24 hours, he said.
State Epidemiologist Jennifer Dillaha said earlier this month that people who test positive are directed to isolate themselves for at least 10 days after they first develop symptoms and until they haven't had a fever for three days.
People at risk of having the virus, based on their exposure to an infected person, are directed to self-quarantine and are advised to get tested, she said.
ELECTION STEPS
Hutchinson previously set goals of testing 60,000 Arkansans in May and 120,000 Arkansans this month.
Both goals were met, with the state testing a total of 80,808 in May and more than 125,000 so far this month.
Smith said he views the goal for July, which equates to testing about 6% of the state's population, "as a floor rather than a ceiling."
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Testing is "critical for us, to identify those chains of transmission so we can interrupt them," he said.
Hutchinson also said Wednesday that he had been in touch with the state Board of Election Commissioners, Secretary of State John Thurston and county officials about measures that may be needed to allow safe voting during the general election in November.
Hutchinson said he will "make some decisions based upon their guidance and their requests" by Aug. 1.
"That way there's adequate time to prepare for the election and make any adjustments that are needed," Hutchinson said.
The issue prompted a lawsuit Tuesday by a retired Arkansas Court of Appeals judge and state elections director that seeks an order ensuring no-excuse absentee voting will be allowed.
TRAVEL ALERT
Also Wednesday, the governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut announced that they would require people who had been to Arkansas or eight other states "with significant community spread of covid-19" to quarantine themselves for 14 days.
The requirement, which was to take effect today, applies to travelers arriving from a state with an average of 10 new cases per day per 100,000 residents over a rolling seven-day period or in which an average of 10% or more of the tests conducted were positive.
In Arkansas, an average of 7.8% of the tests conducted over the past seven days had been positive as of Tuesday.
But the state as of Wednesday had added an average of 538 cases a day to its overall count over the past seven days, an all-time high and up from an average of 498 cases a day as of Tuesday.
The average Wednesday translated to a rate of almost 18 cases a day per 100,000 residents in Arkansas.
By comparison, New York as of Monday had added about 3.3 cases per day per 100,000 residents over the past seven days, according to data from the Covid Tracking Project.
"We've worked very hard to get the viral transmission rate down, and we don't want to see it go up again because people are traveling into the state and bringing it with them," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news release.
According to the release, travelers will be alerted to the requirement through messages on highways, airports, websites and social media platforms.
The states also will ask hotels to communicate the mandate to guests who arrive from one of the flagged states.
In addition to Arkansas, the states on the list are Alabama, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah and Texas.
Kansas added Arkansas to a similar list last week.
"Obviously, we've got work to do in the state, and we're going to do the work to reduce the spread," Hutchinson said Wednesday.
Arkansas had previously required travelers arriving from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Orleans and overseas to quarantine themselves, but that mandate was lifted June 15, when Arkansas entered its second phase of lifting restrictions that were imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
FORECAST UPDATED
Hutchinson on Tuesday said Arkansas is preparing for a potential surge of covid-19 infections that a forecast had predicted would result in more than 3,300 Arkansans being hospitalized as of Sept. 30.
Those projections by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, dated June 12, had already been updated by the time Hutchinson spoke.
A report from the college dated Friday, and provided to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by the Health Department on Wednesday, predicts a peak of 3,673 hospitalizations, with 770 patients on ventilators, on Sept. 20 under an average-case scenario.
By that time, the state's case count would have risen to 146,927.
In a worst-case scenario, hospitalizations would peak at 6,461 on Sept. 21, including 1,356 patients on ventilators. The state's cases at that time would total 258,442.
PRISON CASES
Of the cases added to Arkansas' total Wednesday, at least 43 were among inmates in prisons or jails, Smith said.
He noted that 168 cases were from Malvern. Most or all of those likely stemmed from an outbreak at the Ouachita River Unit, a state prison, but hadn't yet been classified as prison cases, he said.
Department of Corrections spokesman Cindy Murphy said more than 1,700 inmates have been tested, with the results for 294 of them coming back positive.
The department was still waiting on the test results for 523 inmates, she said.
The 453 staff members at the prison have also been tested, she said. Two have tested positive. Results for many other staff members are pending.
EXAMPLES ELSEWHERE
The state's other new cases included 79 in Washington County, 67 in Benton County, 51 in Pulaski County, 40 in Sebastian County, 29 in Faulkner County, 26 in Yell County and 26 in Columbia County.
Health Department spokesman Gavin Lesnick said in an email that the department is aware of "about a dozen" cases connected to the First Pentecostal Church in North Little Rock.
"We believe some of the cases are tied to an event in early June at the church as well as subsequent services there," Lesnick said.
He said the department was conducting testing at the church Wednesday and planned to continue it today.
"I don't have an estimate of the total number of tests, but we want to make sure as much testing as needed is available," he said.
Tomas Bohm, chef owner at The Pantry in west Little Rock, said in a Facebook post Wednesday that the restaurant would temporarily close after a staff member was "exposed to COVID-19."
"As transparent business and out of an abundance of caution, we have made the decision to close our restaurant in order to have every employee tested," Bohm said in the post. "When we receive test results from our employees, we will re-open the restaurant with confidence knowing that our place is safe for our staff, loyal guests, and our community."
