By: Ray King
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said Monday that an additional 47 cases of COVID-19 have been reported since Sunday, bringing the new total to 473.
At his daily news conference, Hutchinson said 62 of the victims are currently hospitalized, an increase of 19, and there has been an additional death, which now totals 7.
Dr. Nate Smith, the Director and State Health Officer for the state said that death was a person over the age of 65 and was the first from a nursing home.
Smith expanded on the numbers a little more, saying that of the 473 people who have tested positive for the virus, 17 of them are children under the age of 18, 149 are over the age of 65 and the remaining 307 are between the ages of 19 and 64.
Seventy-one of the cases were the result of domestic travel while another 73 were as the result of contact with health care workers, an increase of six.
Smith said two other cases have been reported at The Waters of White Hall, bringing the total to six and one of the new cases is an employee.
He said he had also received questions about outdoor sports and said they would be fine if a six-foot social distance is maintained. As an example, Smith said playing tennis would be OK if the players don’t get too close to each other when the game is over.
The Governor, who frequently played basketball with other state employees said he is now playing solo, one of the sacrifices he said we are all having to make.
Also speaking was Stacy Hurst of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism who said that state parks are currently open but the department is taking “extreme measures to reduce the risks to visitors and employees.”
Among those are the closing of lodges and bathhouses and only people with self-enclosed RV’s will be permitted to camp.
The governor also announced that an additional $45 million is being allocated for the purchase of personal protection equipment and the like. That is on top of $30 million that was previously allocated.
He said the government’s focus on hot spots like New York California and New Orleans are the reason that medical supplies are difficult to obtain.
