State health officials: Covid hospitalizations fall for first time in 4 days

Ashley Cannon, a registered nurse at Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff, walks to her desk from a patient's room in the covid ward of the hospital on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Stephen Swofford)
Ashley Cannon, a registered nurse at Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff, walks to her desk from a patient's room in the covid ward of the hospital on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Stephen Swofford)

The number of people hospitalized with covid-19 in Arkansas fell Thursday for the first time in four days as the state's new case numbers continued to slowly trend downward from the peak they reached last month.

Arkansas' death toll from the coronavirus, as tracked by the Department of Health, rose by nine, to 11,745.

State Epidemiologist Mike Cima said two of the deaths reported Thursday happened within the past month.

Of the others, two occurred in February, one was from April and four were from May.

After rising by double digits the previous two days, the number of covid-19 patients in the state's hospitals fell Thursday by four, to 408.

That was still up from a recent low of 386 patients who were reported to be hospitalized on Sunday and Monday but down from 435 the previous Thursday.

In the past five months, the highest the number hospitalized reached was 442 on July 20.

"When you look at current hospitalizations plotted out over time, what you see in the past, really, two weeks, three weeks is just a plateau," Cima said.

"That's typical of points where we have peaked and maybe started to come down."

He said he was hopeful the number hospitalized would begin declining more steadily "fairly soon."

The state's count of cases rose Thursday by 1,438.

While larger by 310 than the increase on Wednesday, the rise on Thursday was down by 140 from the one the previous Thursday.

Declining for the third day in a row, the average daily increase in the state's case count over a rolling seven-day period fell to 1,037, its lowest level since the week ending July 5.

With new cases outnumbering recoveries, the number of cases in the state that were considered active rose by 30, to 13,923, after falling the previous four days.

The total as of Thursday was still down by more than 2,000 from its level a week earlier, however.

"It seems to be a continuation of this gradual downward trend," Cima said.

He noted that until recently, the state's new cases had been trending upward gradually for weeks amid a wave of infections from increasingly transmissible versions of the omicron variant that sent cases skyrocketing this past winter.

"Now it seems that, on the other side of this peak, it's going to be gradual on the way down as well," Cima said.

Pulaski County had the most new cases, 224, on Thursday, followed by Washington County with 118, Faulkner County with 97 and Benton County with 80.

The state's cumulative count of cases since March 2020 rose to 908,390.

After falling by three on Wednesday, the number of the state's covid-19 patients who were in intensive care rose Thursday by two, to 62.

The number on ventilators, which fell the previous two days, rose by two, to 17.

At its hospitals in Little Rock and Springdale, Arkansas Children's had 14 covid-19 patients on Thursday, up from 13 on Wednesday but down from 17 the previous Thursday, spokeswoman Hilary DeMillo said.

MAP UPDATED

Reflecting the slowdown in new infections, the number of Arkansas counties where the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people wear masks in indoor public places fell Thursday by two, to 40.

The recommendation applies to counties where the "covid-19 community level," based on the weekly number of new cases, hospital admissions for covid-19 and the percentage of staffed hospital beds that are occupied by covid-19 patients, is considered "high."

Under the latest update to a CDC map, the covid-19 level fell from high to "medium" in 12 Arkansas counties and rose from medium to high in 10 others.

It was the second week in a row the number of counties labeled as having a high covid-19 level fell after reaching 49 -- the largest number since the guidelines based on the levels were unveiled in late February -- on July 21.

The number of Arkansas counties with a medium covid-19 level remained Thursday at 27. The number with a "low" level rose from six to eight.

Among the state's most populous counties, the level remained high in Pulaski, Sebastian, Faulkner, Saline and Craighead counties, low in Benton County and medium in Washington County.

In counties with a medium covid-19 level, the CDC recommends people who are immunocompromised or at high risk of severe covid-19 talk to their health care providers about whether they should wear masks or take other precautions.

People in those counties also should consider wearing masks around people who have a high risk of severe illness, according to the CDC.

In counties with low covid-19 levels, the CDC doesn't have a recommendation about whether people should wear masks.


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