The number of people hospitalized with covid-19 in Arkansas fell to its lowest level in four weeks on Wednesday, though the Arkansas Department of Health also reported the largest one-day increase in the covid death toll since March 25.
Arkansas' death toll from the virus, as tracked by the state Health Department, rose by 19, to 11,794. The increase in the death toll does not necessarily reflect the number of people who died from the coronavirus over the previous 24 hours; it is the number of coronavirus deaths that have been reported to the Health Department in that period.
The number of hospitalizations, which had risen by 10 on Tuesday, fell Wednesday by 28, to 351, its lowest level since July 13. It was tied with the drop on July 21 for the largest decrease in hospitalizations in one day since March 6.
The state's count of cases rose Wednesday by 1,067. While larger by 29 than the increase on Tuesday, it was smaller by 61 than the increase in covid cases reported the previous Wednesday.
Already at its lowest level since the week ending July 5, the average daily increase in the state's case count over a rolling seven-day period fell to 915.
Declining for the fourth straight day, the number of cases in the state that were considered active fell by 294, to 11,793, as recoveries outpaced new infections. Wednesday was the first time the active case total had been below 12,000 since July 5.
The number of the state's virus patients who were in intensive care fell by four, to 50. It was the third consecutive daily decline, and it lowered the total to the smallest number since July 1.
The number of Arkansas covid patients on ventilators, which rose by one a day earlier, remained Wednesday at 17.
Including the deaths reported Wednesday, a total of 58 covid-19 deaths have been reported in the state over the past week — the most over a seven-day span since early April.
Because of reporting delays, as well the amount of time it can take for someone to succumb to complications from covid-19 after being infected, it's common for the number of deaths reported each day to continue rising after new cases and hospitalizations start to decline.
Since the pandemic reached Arkansas in March 2020, the state has reported 913,354 cases of the coronavirus. Of those, 889,537 are considered recovered.