After reaching record levels Monday and Tuesday, the number of people hospitalized in Arkansas with covid-19 fell Wednesday by 14, to 662.
The drop came as the state's count of coronavirus cases rose by 961 -- a bigger increase than the 952 cases that were added a day earlier, but smaller than the spike of 1,155 cases the previous Wednesday.
The death toll from the virus, as tracked by the state Department of Health, rose by 18, to 1,875.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson, in a statement, noted the drop in new cases compared with a week ago, but said Arkansans "still have to be disciplined, watch out for our neighbors, and follow the public health guidelines."
He also highlighted the more than 300,000 covid-19 tests that had been performed this month as of Tuesday.
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"This means that over 10% of the population of Arkansas was tested for COVID-19 in the past 27 days," the Republican governor said.
The total -- 301,577 tests -- consisted of 265,674 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, and 35,903 antigen tests, which are less sensitive but usually quicker.
By comparison, last month, 308,566 tests were conducted, Health Department spokesman Gavin Lesnick said.
The total that month consisted of 284,701 PCR tests and 23,865 antigen tests, he said.
Wednesday was the first day this week in which the state's increase in cases was smaller than on the same day a week earlier.
Over a rolling seven-day period, the average number of cases added to the state's tallies each day fell from a record 1,034 as of Tuesday to 1,006 as of Wednesday.
State Epidemiologist Jennifer Dillaha said the drop in hospitalizations was a welcome development, while the increase in cases was "fairly even compared to [Tuesday]."
She said it was too early to say whether the state's upward trend in daily case increases over the past few weeks had ended.
"We'll just have to watch and see," she said. "I would love to see a decrease, but I'm not convinced that I'm seeing it."
CHURCH CLUSTERS
Dillaha said the Health Department has seen a growing number of covid-19 clusters associated with churches, which are not subject to the type of mandatory Health Department rules that apply to establishments such as restaurants and concert venues.
One cluster of more than 40 cases was linked to a revival in Texarkana earlier this month.
The Rev. David Holder, senior pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church in Texarkana, said people attending the event, which involved six churches, were encouraged, but not required, to wear masks, and "a lot of us did."
"There was a meal served," he said. "They were all served out of containers. Every table was wiped down. Surfaces were wiped down, and we encouraged people to keep their distance."
As to whether people followed that suggestion, he said: "Probably not like they should have."
He said the church auditorium seats about 550 people, and the five-day event drew fewer than half that many people on its biggest night.
A few days after the event ended, he said, he started hearing about people who had attended who had been infected.
He ended up testing positive himself.
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"For me the symptoms were very mild," he said. "It was just some headaches, some exhaust, some fatigue, congestion, like sinus and throat congestion, and that was really all.
"I would say it felt more like a sinus infection, and several people told me the same thing."
Following the Health Department's recommendation, Holder's church shifted to online-only services for the next three Sundays.
When in-person services resume this weekend, he said, "we will have masks, and I've decided that I'm going to require that."
That includes when people are singing, he said.
"It looks like the churches that have followed that protocol have not had the kind of outbreaks or major problems with it," he added.
He said he's also ordered a digital thermometer and is considering taking congregants' temperatures at the door.
"I noticed another church was doing that in our community," he said.
Most of those who tested positive after attending the event had mild symptoms and have recovered, Holder said.
He said the Health Department has been helpful in making suggestions and sending information, posters and other resources.
Previously, he said, he didn't know of anyone in his church who had had the virus, and none of the churches involved in the revival had experienced outbreaks.
"I'm still learning, to be honest with you," Holder said. "I think the churches and congregants should do all they can to be safe, and I think masks are probably a good way, as [Health Department Senior Physician Specialist] Dr. [Sandra] Chai says, to love your neighbor.
"It's not really a red or blue or political issue. It's a health issue, and we should do everything we can do to protect our health and others'. I think that's the loving thing to do."
Lesnick said the Health Department is encouraging anyone who attended the revival to get tested at an event at the church from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday.
He said the purpose of the event is to "detect any associated cases we're not aware of to help prevent continued spread."
Tests will be available at no out-of-pocket expense to anyone with or without symptoms, although Lesnick said people with symptoms should isolate themselves at home and can arrange for testing at a Health Department local health unit before the event.
Dillaha said the Health Department has a team that contacts a church when the department learns of a cluster associated with it to "help them work on making changes and provide moral support for them to really enforce the changes."
The department's guidelines include requiring congregants to wear masks, spacing family groups 6 feet apart and providing hand sanitizer at entrances.
Similar precautions should be taken at other events, such as weddings, funerals and birthday parties, where outbreaks have also occurred, she said.
ACTIVE CASES FALL
The cases added to the state's tallies Wednesday included 690 that were confirmed through PCR tests and 271 "probable" cases, which include those identified through antigen tests.
The drop in people hospitalized with covid-19 came even as 79 virus patients were newly admitted to hospitals.
The patients Wednesday included 99 who were on ventilators, up from 94 a day earlier.
The number of people who have ever been hospitalized with the virus rose to 6,920.
The number who have ever been on ventilators rose by six, to 825.
The state's death toll rose by 18, to 1,714 among confirmed cases and remained unchanged at 161 among probable cases.
Among nursing home and assisted living facility residents, the count of virus deaths increased by 14, to 729.
The state's total case count rose to 108,640.
That comprised 100,751 confirmed cases and 7,889 probable ones.
The number of confirmed or probable cases that were considered active fell by 187, to 9,303, as 1,128 Arkansans were newly classified as having recovered.
Despite the different classifications, the Health Department has said it treats confirmed and probable cases the same for the purposes of its contact-tracing efforts.
That includes requiring people whose results are positive from either type of test to isolate themselves and for those they may have infected to quarantine.
The Health Department's count of confirmed and probable cases increased Wednesday by 85 in Benton County, 61 in Pulaski County, 54 in Washington County, 48 in Izard County and 44 in Poinsett County.
Among prison and jail inmates, the state's count of cases rose by 79.
FORECAST IMPROVES
Meanwhile, the projections released this week by the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences continued to show an improvement in the state's long-term outlook for infections and hospitalizations.
The latest forecast report, dated Friday, predicts active infections will peak at 40,085 on April 3 under a moderate scenario or 62,930 on March 21 under a worst-case scenario.
Those numbers include infections predicted to be confirmed through tests, as well as undetected infections of people who don't show symptoms and others who are infected but don't get tested.
The previous forecast, dated Oct. 7, predicted that active infections will peak at 52,087 on March 5 under a moderate scenario or 80,753 on Feb. 22 under a worst-case scenario.
Under a moderate scenario, the latest forecast predicts that hospitalizations will peak at 962, with 336 Arkansans in intensive care and 117 on ventilators.
The earlier forecast had predicted a peak of 1,250 hospitalizations under that scenario, with 437 Arkansans in intensive care and 152 on ventilators.
The latest report says the projections refer to "new" hospitalizations, rather than the total number of people who will be in the hospital at a given time.
"We will be doing more research to see how we can arrive at that number," the report says.
Another model in the report predicts that the state's confirmed case count will rise to 142,113 by Dec. 15, with the death toll rising to 2,762.
The report notes that 134 children with covid-19 had been hospitalized as of Oct. 17 and predicts that number will grow to 156 by Sunday.
'DIFFERENT STRATEGY'
According to a weekly report from the White House coronavirus task force, Arkansas added 6,597 cases to its tallies last week, up from 6,226 the previous week.
The cases last week translated to a rate of 219 per 100,000 residents, the 13th-highest rate in the country.
The state's rank was the 12th-highest the previous week and the 11th-highest the week before that.
With 123 covid-19 deaths last week, Arkansas also ranked fourth in the country in new deaths per capita, behind North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, after having the second-highest rate for two weeks in a row.
"Need a different strategy for reducing transmission; what worked in the summer is not working in the fall with cooler weather and considering COVID fatigue," the latest report says.
"Keep mask requirements in place and promote physical distancing, hand hygiene, avoiding crowds in public and social gatherings in private, and ensuring flu immunizations."
Noting an increase in cases in Craighead County, the report recommended a "rapid test and isolate" campaign in that county.
"Incentivize Craighead County residents to come forward to get tested to significantly reduce viral spread and cases within a few weeks," the report says. "This will be a community approach with every resident doing their part to stop the spread."
Lesnick said the Health Department doesn't "have any information on a campaign like that at this time."
The report continued to list Arkansas as being in the "red zone" for cases, meaning it had 101 or more new cases per 100,000 residents last week.
It also continued to list Arkansas as being in the "yellow zone" for its percentage of PCR tests that were positive.
That percentage fell from 7.6% during the week that ended Oct. 14 to 7.2% during the week that ended Oct. 21.
States were considered to be in the yellow zone for that measure if 5%-7.9% of their tests were positive and in the "orange zone" if 8%-10% of their tests were positive.
The report also listed 18 Arkansas counties as being in the "red zone," meaning they had 101 or more new cases per 100,000 residents last week and that 10.1% or more of their tests were positive.
That was up from 16 counties in the previous week's report.
SPRING BREAK
To try to reduce the risk of travel-related coronavirus spread, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville announced Wednesday that it's replacing a week of spring break with three shorter breaks.
UA-Fayetteville joins several universities in announcing changes to their spring calendars, but some schools, including the University of Central Arkansas, have said they plan at least for now to keep their traditional break as scheduled.
UA Provost Charles Robinson said in an email message to that campus that the university's spring semester will begin Jan. 11, as scheduled.
Rather than a week of break, "we will instead split those five days into smaller breaks intermittently throughout the semester in an effort to limit travel and reduce the chance of the virus being spread by members of the campus community who travel and return from other locations," Robinson said.
Days off will be Feb. 22-23, a Monday and Tuesday; March 25-26, a Thursday and Friday; and April 2, a Friday. Previously, spring break had been set for March 22-26.
Robinson said the decision was made "with input from students and faculty who agreed this was the preferred approach," but a petition seeking to return spring break to the spring semester calendar had more than 1,900 signatures within four hours of being posted online.
Mason Hart, a sophomore accounting major from Benton, started the Change.org petition and said he was surprised at how quickly the signature count had risen.
Hart, 20, said he knew before Wednesday that Ouachita Baptist University had announced the cancellation of its weeklong spring break.
The private university in Arkadelphia is instead having a condensed spring semester with a four-day Easter holiday.
Other Arkansas colleges to eliminate the traditional weeklong break in the spring include Magnolia's Southern Arkansas University, which is also ending its spring semester earlier than normal.
Among large public schools in nearby states, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Mississippi and Texas A&M University have also announced the elimination of spring break.
Hart said, however, he did not expect an announcement from UA so soon.
"March is five months away, and in five months there could be a vaccine that people could take, the numbers could be down compared to right now," he said.
The campus moved its typical two-day fall break from October to combine it with the Thanksgiving holiday. Hart said it's "very contradicting" that students are being asked to return after an expanded Thanksgiving break, yet the university is not allowing students a week off in the spring.
UA on Wednesday reported 21 new covid-19 cases identified on Monday and Tuesday, either through on-campus testing or self-reported positive test results. UA listed 44 active cases as of Tuesday, including 38 students, up from 23 active cases a week earlier.
Robinson's message to the campus also stated that while spring semester classes will continue to be recorded so students can keep up in case they must quarantine or isolate, more face-to-face classes will take place.
A UA spokesman has said that about 65% of courses normally taught in-person switched to a remote instruction format this fall. That percentage alone doesn't take into account how many students in face-to-face or hybrid courses are opting to participate remotely.
The combination has led to far fewer students on campus than typical, and Chancellor Joe Steinmetz has said he wants more students attending in-person classes.
In its daily covid-19 report, the Little Rock School District reported eight new virus cases at schools across the district.
One staff member each at Baseline Academy, Central High School, Cloverdale Middle School, Stephens Elementary and Western Hills Elementary tested positive. One student each at Cloverdale, Horace Mann Arts and Science Middle School, and Southwest High School tested positive.
Earlier this week, Cloverdale and Southwest High School transitioned to all-virtual instruction through at least Friday, when the district will reassess the situation.
An additional 19 staff members and seven students in the district went into isolation as a result of possible exposure. Eleven staff members at Cloverdale entered quarantine, according to the school district.
Information for this article was contributed by Joseph Flaherty of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
