The number of active cases of covid-19 in Arkansas rose on Friday for the third day in a row.
Active cases increased by 73 on Friday to total 1,220, according to the Arkansas Department of Health. It was the biggest jump in active cases since March 29. The numbers represent people who have recently tested positive and are possibly still infectious.
A week earlier, on April 15, active cases were at 1,064. The low point this year for active covid cases was April 5 when they totaled 963.
Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, chief medical officer for the state Health Department, said the increase was a cause for caution.
"We need to monitor it closely and keep people informed so they can make a decision about what they want to do to protect themselves and their family," she said. "It's important to protect your family from this. Even people with mild illness can have what is called long covid."
The number of total covid-19 cases in Arkansas increased by 165 on Friday to 834,864, according to the Health Department.
It was second-biggest one-day increase this month. The biggest jump was on Wednesday.
There have been 752 total new cases since the previous Friday, April 15.
Dillaha said many people are getting home covid tests and those test results aren't reported in the Health Department's statistics.
"To see it creep up makes me want to make sure we are monitoring the situation," she said of the increase. "Fortunately the hospitalizations have stayed low. I'm hoping that will continue for the time being."
A total of 50 people were in Arkansas hospitals on Friday with covid-19. That number is down from 51 on Thursday and up from 48 the previous Friday, April 15.
The number of covid patients in intensive care on Friday was 22, down four from Thursday.
And the number of covid patients on ventilators was 13, down three from Thursday.
The intensive-care and ventilator numbers each reflect the biggest one-day drop in more than a week.
Even with the case increases, Dillaha said we're still in a much better place than we were during the delta variant surge late last year or the omicron variant surge in January.
"The cases are very low right now," she said. "We have testing that's readily available. ... We have these vaccines that are safe and they work really well at preventing illness. They keep a lot of people out of the hospital and keep a lot of people from dying.
"I think we're at a place where we can take a deep breath and attend to the things that we have neglected during this pandemic while at the same time staying vigilant with regards to efforts to protect ourselves in an informed way."
Dillaha said it's not as important to wear a mask now as it was when covid transmission rates were much higher. She said the level of immunity is higher now.
"I think a lot of people got covid as well as a lot of people got vaccinated," she said.
The number of new daily cases on a rolling seven-day average was 107. Friday was the first time since March 31 in which the seven-day average of new cases topped 100, and averages in March were inflated by a backlog of cases from the omicron variant in January and February.
Total recoveries were 822,039 on Friday, up 89 from the previous day. Over the past week, 563 cases were reported as recovered.
The number of Arkansans who are fully vaccinated was 1,585,573, up 703 from Thursday, according to the Health Department.
The number of people who have had booster vaccination shots was 564,150, up 793 from Thursday.
Counties reporting the most new cases on Thursday were Pulaski with 26, Washington with 22 and Miller with 18.
Information for this article was contributed by Brian Smith of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.