By Ray King
One hundred-thirty new cases of COVID-19 were reported in the past 24 hours, with 113 of them being in a community setting but Governor Asa Hutchinson said Thursday that he was not aware of a large outbreak in any one county of the state.
At his daily press briefing on the COVID-19, the Governor said Union County reported the largest number of new cases with 21 while Craighead County was second with 14. Pulaski Count reported 13 cases, Washington and Jefferson Counties 11 each and Sharp County 10.
The remaining 17 new cases were in a correctional facility setting and State Health Officer Dr. Nate Smith said testing has been completed in a barracks at the Randall Williams Correctional Center where 48 inmates tested positive. He said will now do testing at other buildings at the center.
A total of 69 patients are currently hospitalized and there has been one additional death, bringing the state’s total to 98.
According to Smith, 928 cases of COVID-19 are considered active with 522 of them in communities, 305 in correctional facilities and the remaining 101 in nursing homes. Another 3,340 individuals have recovered, Smith said.
After a slight decline, the number of reported cases and the number of hospitalizations have increased slightly in the past two days and the Governor said there is still a lot of work to be done before the state moves into Phase 2 which was tentatively set to begin Monday, or two weeks after some of the restrictions imposed by the Governor were being scaled back.
